Opinion

Patrick Murphy: As we watch Britain's Brexit chaos, Ireland cannot afford to be too smug

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy

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

A rough sleeper outside Custom House in Dublin. Last week, a Dublin father explained how he, his wife and three children have to ring up every evening to see where they can stay for the night. During the day they walk the streets of the city with nowhere to go
A rough sleeper outside Custom House in Dublin. Last week, a Dublin father explained how he, his wife and three children have to ring up every evening to see where they can stay for the night. During the day they walk the streets of the city with nowhere A rough sleeper outside Custom House in Dublin. Last week, a Dublin father explained how he, his wife and three children have to ring up every evening to see where they can stay for the night. During the day they walk the streets of the city with nowhere to go

If Ireland and Britain are like two ships off the coast of Europe, it would appear fair to suggest that nationalist Ireland is grinning smugly at the other vessel's mutinous crew and confused passengers.

While the SS Britannia goes around in circles, the good ship Hibernia represents a model society, as it sets course for a wonderful future in the political paradise of the European Union.

Yes, that is a rather fanciful description, but as Britain ties itself in political knots during a week-long debate on Brexit, it is hard to avoid a pervading (and misplaced) sense of Irish nationalist smugness.

Britain's difficulty has been Berlin's opportunity to convince nationalists that not only is there no alternative to EU membership, but that the EU is good for us. Media coverage and comment on Britain's dithering over Brexit has tended to divert attention from Ireland's increasing love affair with some rather dubious allies in Europe.

More significantly, it has steered the Irish political consciousness away from tackling, or even discussing, the failings of modern Irish society, north and south. Welcome to the delusional state of Irish nationalism.

We do not have to look far for evidence. In the north, leading nationalists have written to Leo Varadkar asking him to defend their rights (are nationalist rights different from civil rights?), while an estimated 10,000 people in the south are denied the right to a home.

(How exactly do you become a leading nationalist - do you sit an exam, or like some form of political manna, does "leading nationalism" waft gently down from the sky at night, settling only on a select few?)

The number of families in Leo's jurisdiction with nowhere to live has increased by 20 per cent since last year. Between June and September this year, an additional 415 families, including 893 children, became newly homeless in Dublin.

Last week, a Dublin father explained how he, his wife and three children have to ring up every evening to see where they can stay for the night. During the day they walk the streets of Dublin with nowhere to go. Should leading northern nationalists not have asked Leo to defend that family's rights?

Ah, you say, we have to resolve Brexit before we can tackle those issues. Good point - or it would be, if we had tackled them before Brexit became an issue.

Homelessness is increasing in both the UK and the EU, which suggests that it is the economic system rather than political structures which determine life quality. Oddly, union with Britain is probably less repressive right now than with the EU. In Hungary, for example, Prime Minister Orbán has forced the privately-funded Central European University to leave the country (yes, he expelled a whole university).

The university's expulsion is part of a government campaign to suppress freedom of expression in the media and education. Irish nationalists support political union with Orbán's government.

Michelle O'Neill says there is "no good to come from Brexit". If no good can come from breaking the union with a state which expels a university, perhaps we need a new definition of "good".

Leo Varadkar also presumably shares her view, because Fine Gael is in the same EU parliamentary group as Orbán's party. (That's the same Leo who now refers to "Ireland and Northern Ireland".)

It may be exaggeration to suggest that Brexit allows us to bury bad news. While Brexit certainly presents challenges, it has allowed nationalist politicians to avoid responsibility for the long list of Stormont scandals and the dire state of our schools and hospitals. Never mind Stormont's collapse, let us berate Britain for Brexit.

So what exactly has nationalist Ireland to smile at? Yes, the British have made a mess of Brexit, but they at least debated it. The only group which has advocated rational debate on the EU here is the Christian Churches which have asked politicians "to respect the integrity of those who conscientiously differ from them". It is hard to find examples of nationalist politicians having implemented that advice.

Instead, Brexit has fuelled an upsurge in Irish nationalism which is anti-British, pro-EU (including Hungary) and denies the existence of an Irish nation. (Protestants, apparently, are British.)

So let us promenade with pride on Ireland's deck, as Britannia tries to limp to the nearest port. But before we become too smug, we should recognise the type of politics, economics and social policy which lies in wait for Ireland at its ultimate EU destination - and if we took the time to look at our own ship, we would see it has just as many leaks as Britain's.