How Ireland Outmaneuvered Britain on Brexit&Irish Indian PM Varadekar
How Ireland Outmaneuvered Britain on Brexit
Irish diplomats set the terms of the Brexit talks long before the British caught on. Here’s how they pulled it off.
British Prime Minister Theresa May and Irish Taoiseach Enda
Kenny in his office in Dublin, where a portrait of the Irish
revolutionary Michael Collins hangs.
Photographer: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
By
The day after former U.K. Prime
Minister David Cameron unveiled his plan for a Brexit referendum in
January 2013, he grabbed his Irish counterpart Enda Kenny in a VIP room
in Davos.
Cameron
told Kenny he had to hold the vote, according to one of the people with
them. But there was no reason to worry, everything would be okay.
The
exchange suggests that Cameron, whatever other mistakes he might have
made, at least realized the difficulties that Brexit would pose for
Britain’s closest neighbor. That awareness was lost as the shock
referendum result consumed the British establishment.
It was a critical mistake.
As
the talks played out over the next two and a half years, the Irish
question would shape the negotiations, expose the flaws in the Brexit
rhetoric of “control” and ultimately put the entire project in jeopardy.
This week Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, was pleading with EU
leaders for a lifeline to break the impasse created by the Irish border.
This
account of how the Irish question came to dominate the entire Brexit
project is based on conversations with five officials, past and present,
in Dublin and London. They asked not to be identified detailing their
private discussions.
After the U.K. leaves the European Union, a
310-mile line running from near Derry in the north to Dundalk in the
south will form the bloc’s only land frontier with Britain. That’s a
legacy of the partition of Ireland in 1921 following the War of
Independence against the British.
Controls
along the border largely melted away in the 1990s as the two economies
joined Europe’s single market and the Good Friday settlement cemented an
uneasy peace in a region devastated by sectarian violence.
As the Brexit drama raised the prospect of checkpoints returning, Kenny could see all those gains put at risk.
He
was reminded of the stakes each time he glanced above the fireplace in
his office where a portrait of the Irish revolutionary Michael Collins
hangs.
A sticker reads “No Border, No Brexit” on a road sign near the “Hands Across The Divide” sculpture in Derry, Northern Ireland.
Photographer: Mary Turner/Bloomberg
Collins led the 1921 delegation that negotiated independence from the U.K. for the 26 counties of the south.
He’s
revered as a hero by many people in Ireland for his bravery and
astuteness. Others though see him as a traitor for surrendering the six
counties in the north. For Kenny, and his successor Leo Varadkar, Brexit
was their Collins moment.
“The history wasn’t lost on anyone,”
said Feargal Purcell, then Kenny’s press spokesman and now a director of
public affairs at public relations firm Edelman. “We were ready
diplomatically, strategically. Everyone’s mindset was right.”
By
the time referendum result came in, Kenny and his team had already
honed a message for their European allies: for you, this might be about
market access, but for us, it’s about peace.
A second unspoken factor was also at play in Brussels.
Northern
Ireland was a place where the “fantasies” of the Brexit camp clashed
with reality, according to a former adviser. For those seeking to
illustrate the difficulties inherent in the wider Brexit project, it was
the perfect vehicle.
The Irish found they were pushing at an open door.
Though details of the conflict were fading,
many EU leaders still recalled the atrocities—especially when reminded
by the Irish diplomats—and fears of a return to violence were real.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, was particularly
receptive—he’d worked on the peace process as an EU commissioner almost
20 years ago.
The British, who’d barely considered the issue,
seemed unprepared. To compound their problems, Cameron had ordered his
officials not to plan for a possible departure before the referendum to
avoid handing arguments to the Leave campaign.
By the time
Theresa May took office in July 2016, the Irish had already started
framing the border issue and the EU was determined it wouldn’t allow
anything to jeopardize the peace.
A poster reading “No EU Frontier in Ireland, No Hard Border, Respect the Remain Vote” stands in Killeen, Northern Ireland.
Photographer: Mary Turner/Bloomberg
When
May traveled to Dublin six months later, Kenny pressed home his
advantage, wringing a pledge from May to avoid a return to the “borders
of the past.”
The Irish suspected that May still didn’t realize the significance of the concession she had just made.
In
April 2017, the Commission made the Irish border one of three key
issues that needed “sufficient progress” before it would discuss its
future trading relationship with the U.K.
The British couldn’t believe what was happening, said one Irish official involved. They had taken their eye off the ball.
By the time Varadkar succeeded Kenny that June, the template was set even though the backdrop had shifted dramatically.
In
a surprise U.K. election, Tory losses cost May her majority and, in a
cruel twist, left her dependent on Northern Ireland’s Democratic
Unionist Party.
In U.K. politics, no one cares about the details
of British control in Northern Ireland quite like the territory’s
unionist parties. While the DUP is pro-Brexit, remaining an integral
part of the U.K. is its raison d’etre and it opposes anything that
suggests separation.
The
narrative toughened in the U.K., inevitably triggering a reaction in
Dublin. Some on the Irish side felt the British were just paying lip
service to the importance of keeping the border open.
One phrase
in particular stuck in their throats. May and her ministers stuck to the
line that they were aiming to keep the border as “frictionless as
possible.”
The Irish heard that as: we’ll do our best for you, but…
Leo Varadkar with Arlene Foster, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, in June 2017.
Photographer: Aidan Crawley/Bloomberg
It
wasn’t enough. Ireland and the EU demanded written guarantees that the
border wouldn’t return. In December 2017, May made that commitment.
Everything flowed from that point.
Scrambling
for a fallback plan to honor her promises even if trade negotiations
falter, May settled on a compromise that pleases almost none of domestic
factions.
She argues that she secured important concessions.
But Brexiteers hate it because ties to the EU customs union limit their
freedom to do trade deals. The DUP rejects it because it may create
internal barriers in the U.K.
But Ireland is on the brink of a diplomatic triumph, if May can somehow get her plan over the line.
Even if she fails, the ensuing chaos could lead to an even softer departure that would suit the Irish just as well.
The
risk though is that hardliners in the U.K. could seize on the prime
minister’s weakness to engineer a no-deal Brexit. In that scenario, the
Irish would be among the worst affected by the economic fallout. And
officials in Dublin would know that it was their demands on the border
that scuppered the agreement.
Some on the Irish side still worry
that they pushed the British too far. One official put it like this:
“This will either turn out to be an incredible diplomatic triumph by
Ireland. Or a strategic mistake.”
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comment:-Britain cannot tolerate their previous Indian colonial "coolies"slaves to rise up and rule their border state of Ireland so...........
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Thirty dollars a-head or more were being paid last year for coolies delivered on board; arrived at Havana, the "contracts" could be sold at $400 a-head.
Jun 16, 2015 - This resource consists of historical documents about Chinese coolies imported to Cuba during the 19th century. Its goal is to highlight the .
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FROM 1947:-
FIRST
NAGA LAND REBELS WHO WANTED FREEDOM FROM INDIA ,FOR A FREE NAGALAND ;WAS GIVEN ASYLUM INCLUDING REBEL CHIEF PHIZO
Judging from the asylum granted by UK to their leader Phizo and the pro-Naga coverage in the British press at regular intervals, one can safely infer some tacit ... India under Jawaharlal Nehru even thought of leaving BRITISH COMMONWEALTH at that time ================================================
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WHEN MEZORAM REBELS WANTED TO SEPARATE FROM INDIA AND TO MAKE A FREE MEZORAM THE REBEL CHIEF LAL DENGA WAS GIVEN ASYLUM
Aug 16, 2013 - Dawood's close aide Iqbal Mirchi died of cardiac arrest in London. ... India had twice tried to get him extradited since he fled in the mid-nineties ... [1]-Within one week Pu Laldenga returned to London and insurgency returned .... AND L.T.T.E TERRORISTS FROM SRI LANKA ALSO WAS GIVEN ASYLUM
On 1 March 1966, the Mizo National Front (MNF) made a declaration of ..... joined the MNF and became a rebel was the "relentless bombing of Aizawl in 1966".
The Mizoram accord between the Centre and rebel leader Laldenga promises to finally bring peace to the troubled state. The prime minister seems determined ...
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THEN
TAMIL REBELS OF SRI LANKA WERE OFFERED ASYLUM IN LONDON ;BECAUSE
BRITAIN HOPED IF TAMIL TIGERS WIN IN SRI LANKA BY TERRORISM IT WILL
SPREAD TO SOUTH INDIAN STATE OF TAMIL NADU ALSO
Over the course of the conflict, the Tamil Tigers frequently exchanged control of ..... In 1978, during the world tour of Amirthalingam (with London-based Eelam .... with the LTTE leader Prabhakaran, which was a rare honour one would get in the .... British Columbia coast with 76 Tamil asylum seekers; MV Sun Sea, arrived in ...
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Feb 28, 2013 - A UK court blocks the deportation of Tamil asylum seekers due to have ... up to 100,000 casualties as the Tamil Tigers fought for independence.
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IQBAL MIRCHI A TERRORIST WANTED IN MUMBAI CITY FOR TERROR ATTACK WAS GIVEN ASYLUM BY BRITAIN
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12 hours ago - A
meticulous account of neglected historiographic threads brings to life
the Komagata Maru incident, which launched a thousand protests in .
Abandoned at Sea: Book review of Voices of Komagata Maru
A meticulous account of neglected historiographic threads brings to
life the Komagata Maru incident, which launched a thousand protests in
India
Sikhs aboard Komagata Maru in Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet, 1914
In September 1914, the German cruiser Emden, with remarkable stealth,
appeared at the mouth of the Hooghly and destroyed five English
vessels. It then shelled the tanks of the Burma Oil Company and the
storage batteries of Madras docks. Destabilising sea routes, trade and
mail connections in East Asia, the Emden challenged the confident
superiority of the British empire in the region. Rumours of a possible
German offensive and impending flight of British colonisers were rife
and panic gripped Calcutta, already disturbed by wartime scarcity,
rising prices and repressive administrative measures.
It was into this charged atmosphere that the Komagata Maru, carrying
its shipload of destitute and exhausted passengers, returned to India
under close surveillance. Chartered in March 1914 by Gurdit Singh, a
labour contractor with Ghadar sympathies, it had carried over 300
would-be emigrants to Vancouver. The Canadian authorities, using the
laws of racial exclusion, had refused to let the passengers disembark.
After a long wait and a legal battle, the ship was expelled under armed
threat from Canadian waters and sailed back to India. The British
authorities fearing that the returning passengers, influenced by Ghadar
revolutionaries, would cause further disturbance, disembarked them at
Budge Budge instead of Calcutta. The plan was to arrest the leading
figures and put the rest onto a virtual prison — a “special train” — and
send them straight to Punjab. But at Budge Budge, a confrontation
quickly turned into a massacre and 21 passengers were shot dead by
colonial troops. The Komagata Maru became a lasting symbol, of both
protest and deep-rooted racism; the saga of Indians, mostly Sikhs, being
prevented from travelling as economic migrants to another part of the
British empire has not been forgotten. In fact, the irony of the event
is underlined by the powerful Sikh presence in Canada today which
impelled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, albeit for domestic
considerations, to make a full apology in the House of Commons in 2014
for the discriminatory treatment meted out to the passengers.
The Komagata Maru Memorial at Budge Budge
But relatively less known is the inspiration that the emotive memory
of the Komagata Maru provided to various protest movements that
followed. Suchetana Chattopadhyay traces out these shadowy and neglected
historiographic threads, delving deep into the largely unexplored
archives of the West Bengal Police department. For instance, the
suppressed voices of the passengers detained at Budge Budge, lost in the
carefully orchestrated official accounts of the massacre, are an
important revelation. They bring out evocatively the desperation of the
innocent passengers during a journey through “an unknown topography of
terror,” ill-treatment, privation and abuse during the two-month
stand-off in Vancouver harbour and the return to pre-planned repression
in India. These accounts also record how the survivors of the Budge
Budge shooting were chased as “fugitives” by troops through swampy
terrain, across rivers and into forests and how they survived, begging
alms and seeking shelter in villages. Some rare archival photographs of
activists, vintage steamships and important sites of revolutionary
activity add to the sombre mood and feel of the monograph.
The Komagata Maru resistance led to increased colonial surveillance
on all ships returning to India from the West. In Chattopadhyay’s words:
“The British authorities in India were haunted by the spectre of
return: the return of the rebel underlined official imagination,
strategy and action.” Coercive measures, including rigorous searches for
arms and seditious literature, were undertaken in cooperation with
shipping companies which provided advance information of arrivals.
Returning Sikh emigrants were particularly suspect as they were seen to
be more radical and prone to sedition, a perception that was an
inversion of the post-1857 British construct of a loyal martial race.
Chattopadhyay also surveys the public as well as the underground
discourse post the ships return, centering on adverse labour conditions
and the racist mindset of white settler colonies, with a wink and a
nudge from the colonial government in India. The resultant mood of
resistance was evident also in the links between Sikh migrant activists
with not only Ghadar revolutionaries but also with Bengali bhadralok
anti-colonials and pan-Islamists; class, ethnic and religious
differences were submerged for a common anti-colonial objective.
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Despite official persecution and close monitoring, the memory of the
Komagatu Maru continued to fuel protest between the wars and its
inspiration can be seen in the leftward leaning of Sikh activists, their
membership of the Kirti Dal (the local Calcutta branch of the Kirti
Kisan Party of Punjab) and their activities through the Communist as
well as the Congress Left channels. The epic voyage, concludes the
author, found “multiple echoes in the experiential, political and social
spheres, acting as a motivating force, a conduit of militant
consolidations, a field of not just fleeting combinations but organised
bonding, capable of merging with various streams of activism.” As that
quote will show, this book is not an easy read, weighed down as it is
with the heavy jargon of academic research and exposition. Nevertheless,
it rewards a patient reading with fresh perspectives and insights into
an important event which has remained insufficiently explored until
recent times. Navtej Sarna is former ambassador of India to the United States
