A BREXIT TO SUIT EVERYONE?

THE Good Friday Agreement has been the central pillar in maintaining and protecting the end to politically motivated violence on this island. We live on an island that has been transformed by the political settlement it copper-fastened over the last 20 years.

Legally, it is a binding international agreement. Morally, ethically and practically, it has to be protected because of its demonstrable effectiveness in saving lives and delivering a better Ireland in which to live. That is so obvious it should hardly need stating.

But it does now. Arlene Foster, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party who would be first minister in the Northern Executive if there was one in place, said yesterday that the GFA (or Belfast Agreement as some call it) should not be considered ‘untouchable’ in Brexit negotiations because it is not, according to her, ‘a sacrosanct piece of legislation’.

Horror

In one sense she is right: it is not a piece of legislation at all. But that is not what she meant when she said that ‘it has been deeply frustrating to hear people who voted remain and in Europe talk about Northern Ireland as though we can’t touch the Belfast Agreement’ and that ‘things evolve, even in the EU context’.

Now, as it happens, Foster does not have the immediate power to overturn an international agreement, sponsored by the European Union and lodged with the United Nations. Foster thinks that she has leverage with a Conservative government dependent on Democratic Unionist Party votes, especially if Boris Johnson unseats and replaces Theresa May as Tory party leader and prime minister. There are substantial grounds to believe, based on his always self-serving track record, that Johnson is the type who would threaten to force a British government under his control to tear up international agreements, Trump-style. But it is almost certain that he would huff and puff and fail to deliver.

Nonetheless, Foster’s comments were met with horror yesterday, throughout the island and beyond. Our Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the agreement was not up for renegotiation. It is not to be used as a bargaining chip either. I suspect many unionists would not agree with Foster’s ill-chosen words either, particularly those involved in business and even some who are in favour of Brexit. They know how much could be lost if the benefits of the 1998 breakthrough were lost.

Anger is growing about the behaviour of the DUP. It says, repeatedly, that it does not want the restoration of the border, but all of its actions are moving us towards a situation where that will happen. If there is a ‘no deal’ Brexit then almost certain adherence to World Trade Organisation rules – as the UK intends – will mean that both the EU and UK will have to re-impose a hard border that nobody wants. The consequences could be disastrous as resentments rise.

There is a certain hypocrisy about many of the DUP’s actions and statements. The DUP argues that the North cannot be treated in any way differently to the rest of the UK but then Foster and her party steadfastly oppose marriage equality and abortion.

They have what they say are principled positions on those contentious issues but there are polls to suggest a large majority in the North would like to have the laws that apply in Britain (or Ireland) available to them. ‘We always said that we have just the one red line – we cannot be separated from the rest of the United Kingdom from a constitutional position and also from an economic reason as well,’ she said.

Compromise

This is a clear case of her wanting to have her British-made cake and eat it. She only wants what suits of the British laws to which she claims to be so wedded.

The DUP is a party that always falls back on the majority position of unionists to maintain partition and the place of the six counties in the United Kingdom. Yet it has airily dismissed the reality that a majority of people in the six counties voted to remain in the European Union and are having their will denied. Yes, it can say that the votes only went into the overall tally of the UK vote – but the vote in the North actually created a compunction to act in a more conciliatory fashion in reaching an accommodation that would be somewhat acceptable to those who voted to remain.

Compromise is what the Good Friday Agreement is built upon… and it is what is needed here. The convenient, logical and practical solution would have been for the DUP to support the departure from the EU but to simultaneously demand all of the UK, not just the six counties, remain in the customs union and single market. Why? Well, the customs union sets common tariffs for goods entering the European market, while the single market sets product standards and regulations that have to be met to sell in the bloc. That would have posed problems for the ultrahard-line Brexiteers – who say it will not allow them to drop standards to reach third-party trade deals – but people like Johnson, prior to the referendum, said that there was never any question of the UK opting out of those arrangements. But then we should never trust his comments.

Workable

However, given that this is where we are, it may be time for us in the south to consider how to better seduce the DUP into a deal which delivers a more palatable and workable Brexit. Some of the ideas we’ve had over the past year were almost certain to be unacceptable to hard-line unionists, once they foolishly fell into the trap of believing that being outside of the single market and customs union, as well as the European Union itself, was not actually economic self-immolation.

One of the original so-called backstop proposals from the EU to avoid a hard border is that Northern Ireland should remain in the customs union for goods and be aligned to the single market for any product that could cross the Irish border. The UK could sign free trade deals but these would not be effective in Northern Ireland. That idea didn’t fly for long. British prime minister Theresa May, under pressure from the DUP, said she could never sign up to any proposal that would affect the constitutional integrity of the UK. It is not hard to see why, no matter how much we might dislike that.

Other ideas have been coming forward, including one that would effectively place a border in the Irish Sea for goods travelling over and back between the islands. A combination of technology and checks during sea crossings make this a reasonably practical solution. The problem is persuading the DUP of this. It has fallen into the trap of making it an ideological instead of a practical issue.

In retrospect Mrs May’s biggest blunder came in January 2017, even before the disastrous general election she had called which weakened her position drastically and left her beholden to the DUP. She announced that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market and customs union so that Britain would be free to strike free trade deals. It was a folly that brought the border into play. May has a difficult hand to play but history will not look kindly on her lack of judgment. Her actions have been far more important and significant than Foster’s ill-chosen words yesterday.