Noel Whelan: Anglo-Irish relations hit a new low

It was curious last week to see Irish Ministers on their own holding an open-air press conference at Westminster trying to talk up what they had just discussed at a meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. That our Ministers had to do their press event outside in the midst of a heatwave without their British colleagues beside them was indicative of the frosty state of Anglo-Irish relations.

So determined was the British government to downplay the fact that this ministerial conference had met at all that British ministers declined to do a joint press conference with their Irish colleagues, and it seems weren’t even prepared to provide the use of a room in Whitehall in which the Irish Ministers could meet the press alone.

Simon Coveney and Charlie Flanagan bore their diplomatic humiliation with grace but the pictures spoke volumes.

The British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference was one of the key elements of the Belfast Agreement. It is provided for in strand three of the agreement as a means of “bringing together the British and Irish government to promote bilateral co-operation”. The agreement also provides that: “In recognition of the Irish government’s special interest in Northern Ireland and the extent to which issues of mutual concern arise in relation to Northern Ireland, there will be regular and frequent meetings of the conference concerning non-devolved Northern Ireland matters on which the Irish government may put forward views and proposals”.

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The conference was designed, therefore, to give the Irish government a say in matters about Northern Ireland which had not been devolved to the Stormont Executive and Assembly. However, an appropriate reading of the agreement also makes it clear that when Stormont is not operating the conference is designed to play an even more significant role.

Mr Justice Richard Humphreys points out in his recent book Beyond the Border, The Good Friday Agreement and Irish Unity after Brexit, that the implication in the agreement is that "where devolution is not operating, the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference acts as a forum in which the Irish government can put forward its views and proposals on any matters relating to Northern Ireland". Emphasis should be placed on the words "any matters".

Put it bluntly

The Taoiseach put it bluntly last November. When calling for meetings of the conference to be held, Leo Varadkar pointed out that “if nothing is devolved [to Stormont] then everything is devolved to [the conference]”. The conference was clearly designed in the agreement as an incentive to encourage unionism to embrace devolution because not doing so would mean the Dublin government having an even a greater say in the affairs of Northern Ireland through the conference.

Humphreys in his book criticises as inaccurate recent suggestions that the conference can only operate in parallel with the Stormont institutions. On the contrary, he points out the conference has operated more intensely when the Stormont institutions are not operating. He goes so far as to itemise how, when the Assembly was suspended from 2002-2007 the conference met no fewer than 17 times, including once at prime ministerial level.

The  Brexit crisis and the current deranged nature of British politics is causing untoward damage to this and other mechanisms of the agreement

The decision of the Democratic Unionist Party to go into government with Sinn Féin in 2007 put paid it seems to any meetings of the conference while Stormont was functioning. Despite the commitment in the agreement to “regular and frequent meetings” the conference did not meet in the 11 years since then.

This time around the Stormont institutions have been in cold storage for 18 months. Notwithstanding the provisions of the agreement it took all that time for the Irish Government to persuade the British government to agree to hold a meeting of the conference. When the meeting finally took place last month, the British government, which of course is reliant on the DUP for parliamentary support, made sure the meeting was both low-energy and low-profile.

Nothing of substance

The British did permit the usual photocall of the four ministers gathered for the meeting but that was it. The communique after the meeting contained nothing of substance. The only thing agreed at the meeting was that the conference would meet again in the autumn, but they couldn’t even decide on what date.

The Brexit crisis and the current deranged nature of British politics is causing untoward damage to this and other mechanisms of the agreement. Not only are internal Northern Ireland arrangements long suspended but east-west provisions of the agreement are also being slow-pedalled so as not to upset the DUP and other Brexiteers.

Those diplomats and politicians on both of these islands who have given so much of their working lives to resolving the conflict and transforming relationships between our two countries must be tearing their hair out. Anglo-Irish relations are set for a turbulent autumn and a very cold winter.