Opinion

Claire Simpson: Like many before her, Theresa May's blind spot was Ireland

Theresa May might have insisted that her last-minute deal with the EU will avoid a hard border but the omens are not good
Theresa May might have insisted that her last-minute deal with the EU will avoid a hard border but the omens are not good Theresa May might have insisted that her last-minute deal with the EU will avoid a hard border but the omens are not good

In terms of bad political decisions, Theresa May’s arrangement with the DUP hasn’t been her finest hour.

Yes, she’s put the future of her own government in the hands of a party who would never get elected in Britain. And the DUP deal has effectively made North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds the UK’s head Brexit negotiator, but it could be worse.

Mrs May might want to take comfort from the example of King Philip II of Spain, who decided to send the ‘invincible’ Armada to pave the way for an invasion of England in 1588. After two centuries of dominance the Spanish navy was thought to be unbeatable, or it would have been had Philip not chosen the Duke of Medina Sidonia to lead the fleet - a commander whose only experience was on land and who suffered from chronic sea sickness. Needless to say it didn’t end well.

Or there’s Napoleon, who in 1812 sent more than 600,000 men to invade Russia, only to lose most of them to a combination of Russian attacks, typhus infections, food shortages and below-zero temperatures. By the time Napoleon retreated from Russia in December 1812 - just six months after the initial invasion - around two-thirds of his Grande Armée was dead.

At least Mrs May’s ham-fisted negotiating techniques aren’t likely to lead to a Treaty of Versailles - the 1919 accord which officially ended the First World War and ultimately contributed to the Second World War. The treaty imposed such harsh penalties on Germany that British economist John Maynard Keynes warned that: “Those who sign this treaty will sign the death sentence of many millions of German men, women and children”.

The problem for Mrs May isn’t that she’s a terrible leader, dead set on engaging in disastrous wars or crushing her enemies, but that she shares the same blind spot of so many of her predecessors - Ireland.

One of the oddest things to emerge from the Brexit negotiations is Britain’s apparent confusion that the Republic is a real place, with roads, a border and a somewhat functioning government. You do get the impression that some senior Tories’ only knowledge of our island was gleaned from watching The Quiet Man on a plane, with the sound off. What else could explain the exclusion of the secretary of state from the Brexit Cabinet Committee?

Admittedly James Brokenshire has proved about as effective as a chocolate tea-pot in July but even he could have reminded the committee that Ireland has a border. Someone with a cursory knowledge of Irish politics could have told warring MPs that the Republic’s government has always had a much closer and easier relationship with Europe than the UK and that the EU might be more willing to listen to a country thoroughly invested in the European project than one which voted to leave.

The British government’s actual level of engagement with Irish issues can be summed up by foreign secretary and man-with-the-common-touch Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who simply saw talks on the border as an irritating block to trade discussions, which he described as “the exciting bit”.

Mrs May was foolish to get into bed with the DUP, but even more foolish to underestimate their reason for being - that the north shouldn't be just as “British as Finchley” but more so, that ideally all six counties should tear themselves away from the rest of the island and float along the Irish Sea, coming to a rest somewhere north of the Isle of Man.

The prime minister might have insisted that her last-minute deal with the EU will avoid a hard border but the omens are not good. The DUP are clearly still unhappy about details yet to be agreed, including what the “full alignment” clause with EU rules will mean if no Brexit deal can be reached. Any suggestion that the north’s mythical Britishness will be diluted will bring the tenuous DUP-Tory deal to the brink again. And the DUP’s anger at being kept in the dark about an earlier draft agreement will make them even more alert to any perceived slights.

If the unionist party can collapse Stormont with just a row over a botched renewable heating scheme, it can surely spark a new general election over the most important European political talks of this century. Mrs May, who never wanted Brexit, must be wishing, like many of us, that we can all rewind to June 23, 2016 and start again.