The British Conservatives had not imagined that Ireland would be the main source of their difficulties with the European Union after Brexit. Of course, they never really cared about “the island next door”. It is to a Labor Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that we owe the peace accords of 1998 after thirty years of civil war. A few years earlier, in 1985, conservative Margaret Thatcher had hesitated to accept a first English-Irish agreement to deal with the crisis. As a worthy heir to Cromwell, she distrusted Irish Catholics.
When diplomat David Goodall advised her to dialogue with Dublin, arguing that many Britons had Irish roots, she replied that she felt totally English, before adding: “Finally, my great-grandmother’s name was Sullivan, so I have at most 1/16e of Irish blood! “.
If Ireland is a difficulty for Brexit, it is because the British part of the island, Northern Ireland, has no border with the Republic of Ireland which is a member of the European Union . The latter required in a protocol annexed to the Brexit Treaty that goods shipped from the United Kingdom to Northern Ireland be subject to European standards and therefore to controls between the two islands, because they can then go to the Republic of Ireland.
Beware of the risks of a serious crisis
The result of the checks is a slowdown in trade flows to Northern Ireland, especially food and pharmaceutical products. The North Irish loyal to the British crown evoke a European desire to detach them from London and start to demonstrate violently in the streets of Belfast.
On July 21, 2021, the UK government released a report titled, ” Northern Irish Protocol: the way forward ». He asks the European Union for different control rules depending on whether products from Great Britain have Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland as their final destination.
The renegotiation request is also a threat for London to resort to the unilateral safeguard measures authorized by the protocol, which would undoubtedly create a serious crisis. The European Union also used these measures in January to block the arrival of vaccines in Northern Ireland before changing their minds in the face of rising tensions.
As trade from Great Britain to Ireland is modest (0.5% of the volume going to the European Union), the risk of fraud in the absence of a border between the two Ireland is limited.
Reactivated political tensions
London, however, should have anticipated this problem before embarking headlong on Brexit. It is not for nothing that 55% of Northern Irish people voted against Brexit. The flexibility desired by London in controls would be acceptable to the European Union if the United Kingdom proved to be a reliable partner. But how can we trust Boris Johnson who never ceases to castigate Europe and go back on his word, in international politics as in domestic politics?
However, the European Union bears the responsibility not to jeopardize the peace in Ireland. To demand a new border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland would be a serious mistake. The new Irish affair shows that Brexit is an improvised adventure by the English conservatives, the main effect of which is to reactivate political tensions that had been largely appeased.
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