Opinion

Patrick Murphy: Brexit is not some noble enterprise but an exercise in political opportunism

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is an Irish News columnist and former director of Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education.

The EU's frustration with Boris Johnson was all too evident on Monday when the prime minister's visit to Luxembourg became an exercise in humiliation
The EU's frustration with Boris Johnson was all too evident on Monday when the prime minister's visit to Luxembourg became an exercise in humiliation The EU's frustration with Boris Johnson was all too evident on Monday when the prime minister's visit to Luxembourg became an exercise in humiliation

Although all sides portray Brexit as a matter of economic principle, honour and integrity, the past four years have really been about political opportunism in Britain, Ireland and Europe.

You will, no doubt, regard that comment as the unpatriotic abandonment of Ireland, but since Irish patriotism now seems to consist of the highly sophisticated practice of ridiculing Boris Johnson's hair, maybe it needs a new definition.

(We could do with a new definition of Ireland too - one which includes Protestants. If you do not think they are Irish, what's the point in the tricolour?)

So where, you ask, is the evidence for this column's treasonous notion of political opportunism, as we face the Saxon foe? (The Normans defeated the Saxons in 1066 to rule England, but Irish ballads never refer to Norman foes, even though they invaded Ireland in 1169. Maybe that's just poetic opportunism.)

But let's go back to the beginning. David Cameron included an EU referendum pledge in the 2015 Tory manifesto to put EU membership to bed, by silencing anti-EU Conservatives and isolating UKIP. Cameron's political opportunism aimed to consolidate his power.

Boris Johnson had previously favoured EU membership, but recognising the growing public dissatisfaction with Tory austerity, he saw the 2016 referendum as a political opportunity to oust Cameron by supporting Brexit.

The popular Irish myth that Johnson is a little Englander, seeking to restore the Empire, is wrong. He sensed the public mood, particularly in deprived working class communities, and used Brexit as a rallying cry for his political career.

Typical British politician, you say, no principles. You are right (and you are right about his hair too), but guess what happened in Ireland? Initially, Enda Kenny said he would work closely with the British government and Stormont in "the same spirit of partnership which has underpinned the peace process."

But Kenny's successor, Leo Varadkar, saw Brexit as a political opportunity. Urged on by Berlin and Brussels, he occupied the nationalist high ground, advocating "Brits (economically) out". He was pursuing the EU's political opportunism to make life difficult for Britain to discourage other states from trying to leave the EU.

Sinn Féin took the political opportunity to support Varadkar's nationalism by abandoning their original stance of special status for the north, a proposal which this column has advocated in some detail. (Its content generated more political interest in Britain than here).

Dismissing Theresa May's ideas, Varadkar had to face Boris Johnson, who is currently rampaging across Europe simply to force, and win, a British general election. Johnson is now mocked by nationalist Ireland as a buffoon, in the same way as Punch magazine cartoons depicted the Irish as savages in the nineteenth century.

Some see this as progress, even to the extent that nationalist Ireland now complains that a British Tory prime minister might have taken a few constitutional liberties with an unelected monarch. Now, there's political opportunism.

Meanwhile, the DUP took the political opportunity to support the Tories in Westminster, in the face of the RHI inquiry findings. The SDLP warned them about the company they were keeping, failing to point out their own company keeping with Fianna Fáil.

The DUP might reasonably have supported special economic status for the north. With SF, it could have argued for special trading conditions with both the UK and the EU, laying the foundation for a new economic beginning here.

But economic opportunity lost out to political opportunism, which degenerated into a new argument about an old subject - the border. Schools, hospitals and social services took second place behind party political interest and personal political careers. It could all have been handled much better here, in Britain and in Europe.

But never mind about lost economic opportunities and our children's future sacrificed on the altar of political opportunism. It is not really important. You see, what is important is Boris Johnson's hairstyle.

What do you think he should do with it - perm or trim?