Opinion

Jarlath Kearney: Priority must be given to binding the septic wounds caused by Brexit

Brexit is expected to hit Northern Ireland harder than Britain
Brexit is expected to hit Northern Ireland harder than Britain Brexit is expected to hit Northern Ireland harder than Britain

Brexit’s unfinished business (at phase one) has now settled around customs and consent. Given the past 11 months of tribulations since the Withdrawal Agreement was reached, this rapid narrowing of issues represents significant effort and outcome by key Irish and British negotiators.

Customs and consent are clearly central to moving Brexit into phase two – trade negotiations. But these concepts are also part of our personal and public relationships in wider society.

Relationships cannot thrive unless certain ‘customs’ are mutually respected. They cannot survive unless people give ‘consent’ to ongoing association.

The potential of any progress has only recently emerged because increasingly effective relationships have kindled in recent months between a small number of senior figures, at both political and official level, from Dublin, Belfast and London – diplomatic vignettes that are sometimes seen but rarely heard.

One of the great modern communication challenges is to stop framing people and polity within labels and caricatures that simply fit our own predetermined prejudices.

The truth is that these islands have never been more diverse, and the neat, negative narratives (and narrators) cynically spouting old tropes and cosy labels - in either direction across the Irish Sea - no longer match changes in Friel’s ‘landscape of fact’, something this column has flagged consistently in recent years.

There is no longer any monolith on any side. Ideologies are nowadays subservient to ‘interests’ in virtually every scenario. Ultimately, personal values are the best way to understand participation in the public square.

This increasing diversity of opinion within previously closely defined groups, such as cross-sectoral society in the north, or within Tory or Labour party leaderships in London, is a critical factor. Important influencers, often unseen (some unseeable), are now strongly nudging out different thinking and alternative discourses, ‘streams of hope’ so to speak.

That’s why the issues of resolving Brexit are now back within the framework of their beginning. The strategic nature of the problem means chaos cannot indefinitely be sustained, and so the cycle returns to the point where crunching a deal becomes unavoidable. As TS Eliot wrote in ‘Little Gidding’:

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

A week after the Brexit referendum (June 29, 2016) this column pointed out that the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement must remain the “background template” for all ongoing developments:

“Brexit’s fallout means the executive and assembly parties, and both governments, must once again grapple with the ‘totality of relationships’ among the peoples of these islands. Any refinements – based on mutual benefit – will surely require enhanced and intensified all-island planning and co-operation. Practicalities will shape politics.

“The Hong Kong experience offers a particularly interesting comparator for future Irish-Anglo relationships. Hong Kong has long been characterised as ‘one country, two systems’. Perhaps Brexit will now push Ireland towards ‘two states, one system’.”

By all accounts, the only possible EU/UK solutions for customs and consent will fall within that overarching strategic framework. However, Hong Kong’s current social and political unrest is, itself, a by-warning from history about focusing solely on technicalities at the expense of relationships.

So even if the landing zone of an approved Brexit deal is reached this week or this month, it cannot now be the final end zone. The interim damage that’s happened in recent years to relationships – political, diplomatic, public – both on, and between, these islands has created septic wounds that are making everything else, like constitutional debates, more difficult.

We must prioritise binding those wounds and rebuilding effective and respectful relationships across this island, and between Ireland and Britain. Ultimately, meaningful relationships must focus on the commonality of our individual dignity, not merely the technical management of our communal and class differences. Thus ‘customs’ and ‘consent’ must be interpreted about people, not just policy.

The work of rebuilding transformative relationships throughout these islands is once again being recognised. Ironically, we may all be arriving back to the very place we should have started – the totality of the Good Friday Agreement, not least including functioning institutions.