I hold dual Irish and British nationality and have lived and worked in Ireland. For many years I have regularly visited, and have friends north and south of the border. I read The Irish Times and have read several books about the place. But frankly, I’m buggered if I understand what’s going on there. However, I am sure that the little I know outweighs, by several lorry loads of Guinness, what the average American knows. I once overheard a senior academic colleague (now President of a US university) ask an Irish colleague in Washington DC how big Ireland was and asking, for example, if it was larger than the United States.
Yet, in addition to harbouring murdering Irish terrorists and allowing NORAID funds to cross the Atlantic to fund mayhem in Ulster at the height of the Troubles, they keep coming to try and help us sort out the problems in Northern Ireland. US Presidents of whatever persuasion visit Ireland without exception. As if they did not have enough problems, the present incumbent who visited in his capacity as Vice President, has expressed his desire to visit Ireland again as President. He is probably still trying to work out whether it is in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere. Latest to poke her shillelagh into proceedings is that intellectual giant and all round nice lady Nancy Pelosi, who seems to think she can tell the UK how to handle the border issue that has arisen since Brexit. On the issue of Brexit, they even seemed to have a view—as expressed by Barack O’bama (to use the Irish spelling of his name)—that if we left the EU we’d be at the ‘back of the queue’ for trade deals with the United States. The US Democrat disdain for Brexit always struck me as odd and, as a fellow pro-Brexit colleague once suggested to me: “How would the US feel if it was ruled from Canada, had its currency tied to the Mexican peso, and was prevented from trading with Puerto Rico and Guam?”
I first became aware of the possibility for trouble a couple of years before Brexit took place over a drink with an Irish colleague in Dublin. She told me how opposed the Irish were to Brexit and I asked what business it was of theirs. She said it was the border with the North. Surely, I said, it would just return to becoming a hard border. But she said it had to stay open—as it had been since shortly after the Good Friday Agreement—because if it closed it would become a symbol of partition again and the IRA would recommence bombing and shooting. I must admit that I had not thought of the consequences, but assumed that we would find some way to solve the problem. And indeed, we tried.
Yet here we are six years on from Brexit and it remains unsolved, despite endless efforts by the British government to do so. We have suggested technological solutions that would permit the free movement of goods across the border. However, the EU has consistently been obstructive, insisting that, because of the open border, the UK must effectively operate a border between one part of its territory and another. The single-market must be maintained at all costs. Certain goods such as meat and poultry products must meet EU standards prior to entering Northern Ireland lest a single egg rolls over the border and kicks off The Troubles. On the basis that we have put up with this bollocks long enough the UK government now proposes that: “British goods destined for sale in Northern Ireland would only have to meet British standards, and not those of the EU.” If Ireland doesn’t like it, then let them establish border checks at the behest of their EU masters. As explained by Lord (Dan) Hannan of Kingsclere: “Britain could theoretically respond by matching the EU’s obstreperousness. It could simply say: “We are leaving these arrangements but, as a courtesy to our friends in Ireland, we shall put up no border infrastructure. What you do on your side is your business.”” We don’t give a dose of monkeypox how many dozens of British eggs and sides of British beef enter the Republic. If they were good enough for them before Brexit, then surely, they are good enough now.
Britain has been trying to solve the Northern Irish problem ever since we created it (the province and the problem). Ireland will never become British again, that boat sailed in the 1920s. But despite being Catholic, I probably have more sympathy for the Unionists in Northern Ireland than the Republicans, especially as represented by Sinn Fein. While Irish unity seems the only ultimate solution, how do we sell that to the Unionists without risking a paramilitary backlash from their side? So, if Nancy Pelosi or any of her sentimental Democratic crew wants to come and take charge of a situation of which they can only have the slightest understanding, then over to them. I think they’ll find that it is a lot more complicated than they realise.
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
