Don’t blame Ireland for beating Britain in the Brexit negotiations
Excellent analysis: The Irish played their socks off; the UK just told itself how great it was
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/12/dont-blame-ireland-for-beating-britain-in-the-brexit-negotiations/amp/?
Back in November 2017, according to two sources cited by RTE’s Tony Connelly,
Theresa May told Donald Tusk that all this nonsense about the Irish question was a deplorable distraction.
After all, the UK is a ‘much bigger and more important country than Ireland’.
< such arrogance shows precisely how she screwed up the negotiations >
Know thy place, Paddy.
.....
According to O’Neill, however,
Varadkar holds ‘the elitist, practically imperial belief that what is good for his government – his foreign government – is more important than what the British people themselves, in their millions, voted for’.
....
it would be strange indeed if Varadkar took the view that the British interest in Brexit was more important to Ireland
than the Irish interest in Brexit 🤦🏻♀️
....
It is a sad part of Brexit that so many people who demonstrate no willingness or ability to hear what is being said in other European capitals assume this lack of interest or deficit of attention also applies in the other direction.
They can hear us, you know, even if we are not interested in hearing them.
In the Irish case this is particularly inexcusable; they even speak a form of English over there.
From the outset, the Irish were concerned the UK would successfully cleave the Irish interest from the EU’s other, larger, interest
in coming to a swift and mutually satisfactory deal with the UK.
Preventing that must rank as one of the most successful acts of Irish diplomacy in living memory.
For all that the EU has a certain sympathy for the interests of small countries, that sympathy is not inexhaustible.
Leave no country behind may be the official theory; in practice matters are often arranged differently.
Indeed, that supposition underpinned the Brexiteer belief that Berlin, not Brussels, would be the city in which the real action could be found.^
From the outset, the Irish were concerned the UK would successfully cleave the Irish interest from the EU’s other, larger, interest in coming to a swift and mutually satisfactory deal with the UK.
Preventing that must rank as one of the most successful acts of Irish diplomacy in living memory.
For all that the EU has a certain sympathy for the interests of small countries, that sympathy is not inexhaustible.
Leave no country behind may be the official theory; in practice matters are often arranged differently.
Indeed, that supposition underpinned the Brexiteer belief that Berlin, not Brussels, would be the city in which the real action could be found.
Unlike the British, however, the Irish deployed the full force of their diplomatic resources to the struggle
and, lo, that has proved a wise decision.
They took Brexit seriously at a time when, it being neither popular nor profitable, the British themselves were not inclined to do so.
Disgraceful and characteristic Hibernian subterfuge, but there you have it.
....
If there has been a hardening of Irish tone, it is at least in part the consequence of how the Brexiteers have talked about Ireland.
In terms of policy, however, there has been little substantive difference between Varadkar’s position and that taken by his predecessor Enda Kenny.
....
I am not so sure it is really deplorable for Ireland to advance its interpretation of the national interest.
Again, for the slow learners, Ireland is own country, possesses own interest.
It is a small country, right enough, but not so very far away it’s unreasonable to expect anyone to know anything about it.