The central theme of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester this year – if the ubiquitous banners were anything to go by – was to work out how to “Get Brexit Done”. And, on the final day after the government released its new proposals for the Irish border, it seemed they were at least pretending there was some movement towards achieving that goal.
Except the appearance of movement and actual movement are, needless to say, quite different things. Not long after Boris Johnson’s first conference speech as leader of the Conservative Party, Leo Varadkar said the reports of the proposal are “not encouraging” and “not the basis for a deal”.
When Theresa May squandered her majority at the ill-fated election in 2017, and got into bed with the DUP to prop-up her government, eyebrows were raised in Ireland, and among remainers and moderate Brexiteers in Westminster alike. The DUP’s demands would make striking a workable deal for Dublin and the EU a vanishingly thin possibility. Those concerns were proved right, as the DUP dragged the Conservatives away from a customs union, a backstop, and membership of the single market in exchange for their support in a parliament already hopelessly divided. And the latest developments go to show that nothing has changed, to borrow a quip from a recent prime minister.
As far as we can read the proposals – understand is a bold word – the UK plans to throw up a customs border between the North and the Republic, conducting “checks” elsewhere. There will be some regulatory alignment with EU roles, and a role for Stormont – still not sitting, lest we forget – in approving this arrangement.
Minutiae of goods regulations
It is complicated, and it doesn’t begin to address any long-held Irish or EU concerns. Most damningly, as a proposal it fails to appreciate that for those on the island of Ireland, and many beyond, resolving Brexit and the border by way of a deal is not solely about hammering out the minutiae of goods regulations, or about working out the logistics of lorries crossing a border. Important though those things are, primarily resolving Brexit is about maintaining peace in an area that has only recently acquired it, and retaining the culture and spirit of a fundamentally complicated region that is still part of the United Kingdom, no matter that it seems long forgotten by Westminster.
And this is the problem. The Conservatives have taken their cue from the DUP – a party obsessed with preventing divergence from the rest of the UK, and a party that, when it comes to Brexit, doesn’t actually reflect the views of most of Northern Ireland’s inhabitants. That the proposals are the economic and social ruination of Northern Ireland is irrelevant – it’s a deal for the DUP, not the North, after all. And, that Dublin will find it unacceptable will likely come as little surprise.
Many thought that when Boris Johnson kicked out 21 Tory MPs, destroying his majority, and making the DUP then functionally obsolete, the UK would be heading for a Northern Ireland-only backstop. That would be acceptable to the EU and Dublin – the UK-wide backstop, it shouldn’t be forgotten, was a concession to May’s government. It would have protected the integrity of the single market – the priority of the likes of Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron. And it would have prevented a hard border – not only the priority of Dublin, but a commitment made by the UK government in 2017. However, the DUP – somehow – have managed to hold on to their relevance.
Hardline eurosceptics
Though they’re hard to predict, the litmus test for the acceptability of any deal to the hardline eurosceptics of the curiously-named European Research Group is DUP support. Unfortunately for everyone else, the terms the DUP apply to any deal make any arrangement intolerable to everyone else across the negotiating table. Taking their lead from these Ulster nationalist dinosaurs, the Tory party are worlds away from their “closest neighbour” and moving away further each passing day.
But, where Dublin and the EU might see Boris Johnson abdicating his moral obligation to the people of Northern Ireland, Johnson and his supporters see what he’s doing as a necessary facet of striking any deal – something the government has to do to Get Brexit Done. Something, an aspiring Conservative MP told me, that Ireland should simply swallow to help the UK out of a bind.
At the DUP reception on the final night of the Conservative party conference, Arlene Foster received a hero’s welcome. Her party, who still have the Tories under their thumb, are calling the shots. So long as that’s the case the UK is headed in one direction – a no-deal Brexit, a hard Border, and whatever else may come along with it.
The fact that Britain’s Conservative and unionist party members, at least those present, seem to welcome this development paints a bleak future for the North.
Finn McRedmond is based in Westminster and writes for current affairs website Reaction.life and City AM