Opinion

Tom Kelly: Boris Johnson's Brexit chaos is not a positive for Ireland

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Four years ago to the week, I wrote in this newspaper: “There is no position on Brexit that is good for Northern Ireland and it matters little whether it is soft or hard”.

That was six months after the referendum. Now, weeks away from a total breakdown in relationships between the UK and the EU, my statement remains valid.

The first minister back then called people like me “remoaners”.

Since then, the DUP have given us much to moan about with their economic illiteracy and failed brinksmanship in politics.

The DUP thought they could yank the chain of the English lion, only for the lion to have them for breakfast.

Unionists get so obsessed with imaginary ‘green goblins’ from Dublin that they fail to see the Tories shafting them left, right and centre. Since the demise of the Ulster Unionists at Westminster, politically speaking the DUP are truly friendless at Parliament.

Brexit has always been about English nationalism - despite England being the most mongrel of nations.

And as De Gaulle once remarked, the British are a most un-European country. It has been a long time since Britain deserved the moniker of Great.

It is often forgotten that it was the UK which pleaded to be allowed to join the European community of nations. It was the French government which blocked them. Today the French seem prepared to let the UK leave, saying close the door behind you.

The entire premise of Brexit was based on deceit. The cost of Brexit has now exceeded £200 billion. The UK’s net contribution to the EU in 45 years from 1975-2018 was £216 billion. Before the end of this year it is estimated that the cost of exit will rise by another £22 billion. Those who said Brexit would be ‘bumpy’ are masters of understatement.

Covid has cost this government a further £280 billion. Far from being great, Britain is up to its eyes in hock. UK national debt levels are going to be staggering.

There will be no Brexit dividend, not this year, the next ten years or ever. No one can say they were duped on the Leave side - voters were not gullible, they were just fanatically against facts.

In 2018, arch Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg predicted that the benefits of Brexit may not materialise for fifty years. Of course, the exception will be those city financier friends of the Tories who will successfully gamble on the fluctuations in the British currency.

Far from emerging triumphantly from World War Two, Britain was actually broke.

It took sixty years to pay off wartime loans. And remember, the British public were still enduring the rationing of goods nine years after the war.

Britain loves to claim it won two world wars. They conveniently forget the hugely significant American interventions in both wars and the sacrifices/contributions of the Russians in the Second World War.

The prime minister talks about the sovereignty of “his country” at a time when the very fabric and integrity of the UK is being shattered and undermined from within.

But Johnson actually means England, not the UK or even Great Britain. He certainly doesn’t give a damn about Northern Ireland. The concessions (if that’s what you could call them) in the Withdrawal Agreement and the NI Protocol have left Northern Ireland with a dog’s dinner of a deal. However, the prospect of having no deal at all is even worse. These are but mitigations. Unionists should be grateful, as without them the local economy and particularly farming and the agri-food industry would be decimated.

A Facebook clip appeared from last year of Sinn Féin MP Chris Hazzard bizarrely saying “Let Boris have his Brexit - we will have the future”. Even by his leader’s unrealistic prediction of Irish unity in ten years, Boris’s immediate Brexit will have serious economic consequences for Ireland - north and south - making the future very bleak.

British chaos is not an opportunity.