Today the British government is expected to set out the latest instalment of its confrontational plans to refuse to operate the Irish protocol it agreed in 2019.
On Monday we were given a foretaste when hardline Brexiteer Jeffrey ‘I could live with 40,000 job losses’ Donaldson, met Maros Sefcovic to present his preposterous ‘seven tests’ for the protocol which of course amount to abolishing the protocol.
His ‘tests’ demonstrate two things. First, Donaldson doesn’t understand why there has to be a protocol, and secondly, that he has never moved from the DUP’s original reason for supporting a hard Brexit, namely an opportunity to harden the British border in Ireland and thereby hive off the north from the real world into a unionist fantasy land with talk of a ‘Global Britain’. This introspective nonsense was exemplified in Diane Dodds’s now defunct economic proposals. The DUP obviously don’t realise the north isn’t part of Britain.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Ursula von der Leyen was in Dublin last Friday, not to talk about the protocol; though, in answer to a journalist’s question she did reiterate that, “the protocol is the only solution to protect peace and stability on the island of Ireland and protect the integrity of the single market.” However, her visit was nothing to do with the protocol. The rest of the world has moved on from Brexit and its disastrous consequences.
No, her visit was to endorse the Republic’s plans for spending its share of the EU’s vast €800 billion NextGenEU fund for recovering from Covid-19, the biggest European regeneration exercise since the post-war Marshall Plan. The Republic’s share of the Recovery and Resilience Facility in the fund is €989 million. The EU laid down requirements for applications: they must prioritise climate change, digitisation and post-pandemic social and economic recovery.
Dublin is allocating 42 per cent of its share to dealing with aspects of climate change including a whopping €164 million for Cork’s commuter train electrification. It’s purely coincidental of course that both Micheál Martin and Simon Coveney are Cork TDs. There are €100 million for retrofitting residential and public buildings, insulating and draught-proofing to save energy.
Digitisation of public services, including education, will eat up €316 million. Of that there will be €64 million for electronic devices for school IT infrastructure like laptops and tablets and for greater connectivity across the state with shared government data centres. It’s calculated that as the money rolls in over the next few years it will increase the Republic’s GDP by 0.5 per cent by 2026. On top of the NextGenEU funding there is the €1 billion post-Brexit package to help cope with the economic fallout of Britain’s departure from the EU. Don’t say it should be the UK’s departure. Remember the north is still in the single market. Ha.
Still, we get nathin, zilch, zero. Instead, we wait while the British Chancellor of the Exchequer dithers about whether he should postpone the autumn budget until 2022 when he might know better when to begin his austerity plans to pay for the pandemic induced debt. By 2025 the direct subsidy EU money for farmers here will run out. There is no post-Brexit package of course for it can’t be admitted Brexit is an unmitigated disaster with no upside. What will be the north’s share of any post-pandemic UK cash? No idea. In fact no one in the UK has any idea. Last week was supposed to be Johnson’s big speech on ‘levelling up’. Turns out no one knows what ‘levelling up’ means, least of all Johnson as he demonstrated conclusively in his non-speech. Burble-burble, jabber-jabber: £50 million for football pitches.
With all those terrified new Tory MPs in so-called ‘red wall seats’ begging for cash for their left behind constituencies there’ll be none coming this way. Thanks to the DUP we’re left with our noses pressed up against the sweetie shop window in the south.
