Policy must adapt as shape of UK shifts

WORLD VIEW: British-Irish relations face challenges over Scotland and two very different EU identities

IT IS just as well that official British-Irish relations are so good now, given the likely strains they will undergo in coming years as the euro survives or fails and as Scotland votes on whether to become independent from the United Kingdom.

Both of these processes present a real challenge in managing change for Irish (and British) policymakers. They demand the creation of a real Irish foreign policy towards Britain where previously the Northern Ireland conflict mainly drove it.

Bobby McDonagh, the Irish Ambassador in London, speaking in Dublin this week (see iiea.com), emphasised the joint statement signed in Downing Street on March 12th by Enda Kenny and David Cameron. The first such document not focused exclusively or primarily on Northern Ireland, its opening line indicates well the new spirit at work: "The relationship between our countries has never been stronger or more settled, as complex or as important, as it is today."

The statement sets out a detailed schedule of economic, cultural and political co-operation over the next 10 years, including on Northern Ireland, the European Union and global issues. It notes shared (and divergent) interests, values and policies, promises a joint evaluation of economic relations, commits to closer official exchanges and annual summits, and pledges consultations on key EU policy issues. The strength of the modern British-Irish relationship, as McDonagh nicely put it, “is necessarily based on equality; not equality in size but in sovereignty, not equality in power but in dignity”.

Such consultation will be all the more needed after last week’s EU summit agreed to see a time-bound road map prepared for a “genuine economic and monetary union” and welcomed the euro zone leaders’ agreement to separate sovereign and bank debt. The Government justifiably regards this as endorsing its strategy of multilateral engagement based on full membership of the euro zone to reduce Ireland’s debt burden. The British want a federal euro to survive but cannot be part of it.

Ireland and Britain are going on different journeys, the one towards more integrated financial, budgetary and economic policy frameworks in the EU, the other increasingly towards a marginal role in that endeavour, perhaps even separation from it were a referendum on whether the UK should leave the EU to be put to its voters and passed.

Cameron’s readiness to consider a referendum on renegotiating terms of British EU membership opens him up to intense pressure from Tory Eurosceptics for an in/out one in the next parliament. Prolonged political uncertainty is assured either way.

Scotland’s referendum on independence in 2014 has the same effect on the UK internally. It has not yet been decided whether this will be an in/out one or contain a second option on “devo-max”, defined as complete devolution other than on macroeconomics, foreign policy and defence. Recent moves by the ruling Scottish National Party to maintain an independent Scotland’s membership of sterling, the monarchy and probably Nato even while moving all decisions now made in London to Edinburgh have produced the soubriquet “independence-lite”.

The difference between the two options was explored at a roundtable in Dublin organised by the Institute of British-Irish Studies at UCD. The Scottish political scientist Michael Keating said globalisation and economic interdependence made both options ambiguous, since full sovereignty in 19th-century fashion is no longer realistic. But that is not to underestimate the potentially transformative effect of Scottish independence.

Hugh Rawlings, constitutional adviser to the Welsh first minister, convincingly demonstrated why Wales is not “Scotland-lite” but quite distinct because it is far more closely integrated with its larger English neighbour socially and culturally. But in the event of Scottish independence he agreed with Keating that a “residual UK” containing Wales and Northern Ireland alongside a richer England dominated by its southeast with much fewer communitarian values would probably prove unsustainable. Both agreed it would be more likely that England would leave the UK first rather than continue to subsidise the two peripheries.

It would then face a cold shower over its reduced influence in the EU and the world.

Angus Robertson, leader of the SNP in the House of Commons and director of the party’s referendum campaign, says there is a large section of the Scottish electorate who can be persuaded to vote yes for independence over the next two years – especially if they cannot vote for the “devo-max” most now prefer. His confidence and competence convinced his audience this is so. Either way, there will be an intense negotiation from 2014 to 2016 on independence or autonomy from London.

And even if it is a no, the question won’t go away.

There are clear echoes here of the Home Rule dynamic in Ireland from 1886-1912 when it was seen as a stepping stone to separation by Parnellites and unionists alike. Federalism is ruled out as an alternative way of preserving the UK by its unitary centralism.

Fresh demands for Irish reunification are thus likely to be another potent ingredient in this uncertain British-Irish mix over the next 10 years, as we commemorate the wars and revolutions of 1912-1922.