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Maybe now the Irish Government will accept that the UK and unionists had a point about open borders

How do you keep a border open for some things and not others?

Fencing in place around the International Protection Office on Mount Street, Dublin, to stop tents being pitched. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Fencing in place around the International Protection Office on Mount Street, Dublin, to stop tents being pitched. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Alex Kane
Sat May 04 2024 - 06:15

It suits Rishi Sunak to have a row with the Irish Government right now, particularly on the subject of immigration policy – a policy on which he has looked pretty weak and over which the Conservatives are in danger of losing significant support to the populist Reform UK party in a general election due in the next few months.

So, when the Irish complain about the huge rise in the number of people coming to Ireland because of his Rwanda policy, Sunak is happy to trumpet the policy as a success. Better still, by insisting that there is no “returns policy” (what a horrible expression) from Ireland he is further able to insist that his anti-immigration policy is finally paying dividends. This isn’t about picking a long-term, relationship-destabilising fight with Ireland. This is about Sunak avoiding a catastrophic loss of parliamentary seats and ushering in a decade of Labour government.

The Irish Government probably knows this. But it has existing electoral and refugee problems of its own (which seem to be fuelling the local version of the new-generation populism which is rising across the entire EU) and needs to be seen to be standing up to the UK. Or, as the Taoiseach put it a few days ago, “I certainly don’t intend to allow anyone else’s migration policy to affect the integrity of our own one. This country will not in any way, shape or form provide a loophole for anybody else’s migration challenges.”

Meanwhile, some unionist parties in Northern Ireland are enjoying what they think is a rare moment of schadenfreude. They’re still stinging from what they believe was Leo Varadkar’s “besting” of the UK government during the post-Brexit border debate and relish the fact that the very open border championed by the Irish is now the route by which immigrants will arrive into Ireland from a Britain that, after the Rwanda legislation, looks less secure for them.

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Yet that enjoyment is accompanied by a caution that can be traced back to the prorogation of the Northern Ireland parliament in 1972. Jim Allister, leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice – which is against the protocol and against a border in the Irish Sea – has already expressed concern: “I think where unionism needs to be wary is that when last there was a problem with an open or non-open border on the island of Ireland, the British government rolled over and moved the border to the Irish Sea. Unionists must remain vigilant that [Sunak] doesn’t placate the Irish Republic again by moving the immigration border to the Irish Sea ... because that’s really what Dublin is looking for ... wanting to regard Ireland as a whole.”

I’m not persuaded that either Dublin or London wants any such thing. Unionism has, just about, managed to accept the Northern Ireland protocol and return to the Assembly. But add an immigration border to that mix and political/electoral unionism would abandon the entire Belfast Agreement institutions once and for all. That sort of back-to-the-drawing-board outcome is not in the interests of either government, and the present row will not lead to that sort of outcome.

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That said, part of the present problem lies with Ireland’s insistence, underpinned by the EU and US, that the border, post-Brexit, be kept open. But how do you keep a border open for some things and not others? And while I accept that substantial numbers of, for want of a better term, “ordinary Irish” were happy enough with an open border after 2016, how happy will they be if that openness now leads to thousands or tens of thousands of people fleeing Britain for Ireland?

Indeed, if you listen to GB News (the channel of choice for Reform UK, disgruntled Conservatives and assorted right-wing fringes) you would be forgiven for thinking that its presenters and audience welcome the prospect of Britain’s refugee, immigrant problem being encouraged to avail themselves of an open border in a nearby country with no Rwanda policy. Leading figures within the right of UK politics – like Nigel Farage and former prime minister Liz Truss – blame the Irish for the protocol and will shed no tears if that country now has to “reap what it sowed”.

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But I can’t see either government letting matters run that far. The Belfast Agreement is still regarded by both as too big and too important to be allowed to fail and both know that the moment and circumstances which led to the agreement between the mid-1990s and 1998 were unique. Similarly, both know that the sort of failure represented by a total collapse would do huge, huge damage to the present political stability and might, in a worst-case scenario, lead to renewed conflict.

So, they will do what they have done so often over the past 50 years – look for the bespoke solution to the latest problem. A solution that allows them to retain most of the existing architecture and arrangements and which can be underwritten without any particular loss of face by either side. It’s what we saw with the Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985), the Downing Street Declaration (1993), the Belfast Agreement (1998), the Northern Ireland protocol (2019) and Windsor framework (2023). It’s all about keeping the show on the road and maintaining the bipartisan approach to resolving or preventing a crisis.

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That’s what will be happening behind the scenes right now. It’s in the interests of the present governments and also in the interests of likely successors after the general election. It also suits the UK to be seen to stand up to Ireland (“for a change”, most unionists would say) as queues head from Britain, as well as providing red meat to their own support base. And, of course, Ireland will also want to be seen to stand up to the UK while finding a route out of Ireland for unexpected numbers of new immigrants.

They both want a solution to the row (crisis is too strong a term) and a solution will be found. And maybe, just maybe, the Irish and EU could acknowledge that the UK and Northern unionists did have a valid point about wide-open borders after 2016. A mea culpa is often useful in negotiations.

Alex Kane is a commentator based in Belfast. He was formerly director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party