Divide and rule: how the EU used Ireland to take control of Brexit

The story of Britain and Ireland’s relationship has, all too often, been one of mutual incomprehension: 1066 and All That summed up the view on this side of St George’s Channel with the line that ‘Every time the English tried to solve the Irish question, the Irish changed the question.’ But Theresa May’s problem right now is that the Irish — and the European Union — won’t change the question and the only answers they’ll accept are unacceptable to Mrs May and her cabinet.

To the astonishment of many, the Irish border has become the defining issue of Brexit. There is now a serious and growing risk that the issue will lead to the UK and the EU failing to reach a withdrawal agreement — with all the dire consequences that would entail.

It’s easy to see why the issue didn’t receive the same attention during the referendum campaign. The Irish border is 300-odd miles long with trade of about £6 billion going across it; the Dover-Calais trade is worth 20 times that. But the problem is harder to solve because the EU is saying that, while it is prepared to wait to solve all the other trade issues, it wants the Irish situation resolved by the time Britain formally leaves the EU in March.

The EU’s proposed solution is crude. It wants to maintain frictionless trade on the island of Ireland by, if it deems necessary, imposing checks on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is a rhetorical trick to say that this safeguards the Good Friday Agreement. This EU plan violates the delicate balance struck by Good Friday more than Brexit does. It would ease Northern Ireland away from the UK and push it more towards Dublin’s orbit. Under the Barnier plan, if a Northern Irish business objected to a proposed new regulation, its best bet would be to lobby a member of the Irish government. You don’t have to be from the ‘Ulster Says No’ school of politics to regard this threat to Northern Ireland’s status as unreasonable, even provocative.