Brexit-Exit-of-Northern Ireland?

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our friend and frequent writer of the American and European scenes sent the article shown below.  Terry Field, sometimes of Florida, sometimes France, but always a man who has a vision of the globe as a whole, is an acquaintance of the lady who has written of her great fear that Brexit will mean the dissolving the United Kingdom.  The Baroness's article or rather cry for preserving the Kingdom is found below.  - GNH

This extreme Brexit could break up the UK – and Conservatives like me are horrified - Baroness Ros Altmann 

Protecting the Good Friday Agreement and the integrity of the United Kingdom should be the reddest of red lines.

It looks like our government is finally facing “make your mind up time”. Having spent so long living by meaningless slogans – “Brexit means Brexit”, “Deep and Special Partnership”, “No Deal is better than a Bad Deal” – the Conservative Party is now facing a choice between three bad options.

These are: trying to bluff our way into forcing the EU to capitulate to our wishes, risking an ideologically-driven hard Brexit if the EU cannot agree to our demands, or abandoning our commitments to Northern Ireland and reneging on international agreements that ensure the integrity of the United Kingdom. At least, these are the consequences of the Brexit red lines set out by the government. 

It is hard to believe that the Tory Party – which is registered in Northern Ireland as the “Conservative and Unionist Party” – has adopted policies that put the unity of the UK in jeopardy. I do not envy the Prime Minister’s position, but she cannot continue for much longer with double-speak.

In December, she agreed that, if no other solution is found (and almost everyone knows there is no other solution available) there will be regulatory alignment between Northern Ireland and Ireland, to protect the Good Friday Agreement. 

This is a commitment that the EU and Ireland accepted in good faith. But soon afterwards, some ministers suggested that the agreement was meaningless and had been misunderstood. The EU now requires the wording which our government agreed in December to be put into a legally binding agreement. There seems to be some worrying backsliding going on. Our 27 partners cannot accept this.

The government’s “red lines” set us on course to leave the EU single market and customs union. The logical consequence of this is there must be a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, or at the very least between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. There is no other real world solution. Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, it is not the EU that is trying to break up the UK  – it is her own side.

These “Brexiac” (Brexit at Any Cost) red lines, which should never have been accepted, are an existential threat to the UK. Theresa May knows this. Yet, for the sake of the Tory Party, rather than our country, the PM has allowed her ministers free rein. The Good Friday Agreement, which is approaching its 20th anniversary, has succeeded in allowing us to move on from the days of sectarian violence and threats to mainland Britain, as well as peace and prosperity to the island of Ireland. Yet some Brexiteers go as far as questioning the Northern Ireland border agreements.

The government’s position seems indefensible. If we leave the customs union and single market, there must be a hard border in Northern Ireland. And if we tear up the Good Friday Agreement, the unity of the UK is at risk.

 It’s time to choose: we cannot have two mutually incompatible aims. We are also calling into question our trustworthiness as a nation that honours its commitments.

Many Conservatives are horrified at what is happening in our name. A few extremist Tories have hijacked the Brexit process and are being allowed to run riot, while our international standing is being undermined. Enough is enough.

I hope that on Friday PM May will say that protecting the Good Friday Agreement and the integrity of the United Kingdom is the reddest of her red lines. If other red lines have to be sacrificed for this, then so be it. If her hard Brexiteer colleagues are not comfortable, then I’m afraid she will have to face them with the facts.

All the huffing and puffing about deep and special partnerships or finding technological solutions cannot square this circle. I have tried to work out what the thinking could be that is driving the current situation.

Below, Englishman Terry Field demonstrates how far apart his view of Brexit is from the those who wish to leave the European Union. The blue cast on his left arm is not from bashing his hand on a table expressing his opinion on Europe but rather an injury playing pickle ball, which he swears he will never play again.

Perhaps the game is to try to string things out until the last moment. I think some of the hardliners really believe that the EU will capitulate to our impossible demands because not to do so would be hugely damaging to them. Well, then we must ask what happens if this bluffing fails? If the EU cannot give us what these ideologues want, then we crash out with No Deal. That is not what they think will happen but what if they are wrong?

A minority of extreme Brexiteers apparently believe a No Deal Brexit is fine. They do not seem to care about Northern Ireland’s citizens or the UK’s national and international obligations. This ideologically driven position takes no account of the risk to jobs, business, our leading global position in many areas and just wants out.

A No Deal Brexit would leave us free of the EU, but shackled to a sinking ship, risking the break-up of our United Kingdom and losing all the free trade deals we have built up over the years, not just with our 27 nearest neighbours but also 60 or so other countries (including most of the Commonwealth plus Japan, Canada and South Korea) with whom we have trade agreements via the EU.

For a Conservative and Unionist Party that believes in free trade and private enterprise, while also caring about social values, taking such risks with our children’s future is reckless in the extreme. It’s time for the PM to lead our wonderful country away from the cliff-edge, rather than edging ever closer to it.

Baroness Ros Altmann CBE is a leading supporter of Open Britain.

Comments?
From our thoughtful science teacher in the Midlands of England - 

All very good reading, which I have done whilst looking out on a very grey, damp, gently thawing world. Yesterday, when it was under 100mm of snow, at least it looked pretty and white!

“The West” may well be in ‘head-in-sand-mode’ about Islam, but it’s hard to see what can be done. We oft hear, in respect of all kinds of situations, that “something must be done”, but leaving well alone is not necessarily a bad idea. If, for example, following the attack on the World Trade Centre, President Bush had not begun his 'war on terror’. the Middle East might be a much more peaceful place, and radical Islam would not have been given such a boost to its recruiting officers. In any case, the Islamists ‘know’ that they are doing God’s will and that’s always bad news: to persuade evil men to do good is relatively easy, but for good men to do evil, you need religion. Which religion is fairly immaterial. On a grand scale, look back at the Crusades and the Inquisition; on a less violent but still huge scale, consider the damage done to local cultures and societies by Foreign Christian Missionaries, ‘knowing' that they were doing (their) God’s work.

The articles concerning our leaving the EU are the first about the ‘B’ word that I have read, watched or listened to for many weeks. I find the whole business so deeply dispiriting that I cannot bear its contemplation - and I certainly can’t bring myself to discussing it. To anyone with two or three functional brain cells, it is obvious that any kind of ‘deal’ with the EU will be worse than the ‘deal’ which we have now i.e. membership, so what’s to discuss? I was once advised never to argue with idiots, because pretty soon they’ll drag one down to their level, and having more experience there, they’re bound to win.