The Prospect Interview #150: Hard Brexit now?

 The Times journalist Rachel Sylvester joins the Prospect Interview to get us up to date about the state of Brexit talks. She also introduces the man behind Britain’s negotiating table, David Frost. Is a hard Brexit inevitable, and what can Frost’s little-known background reveal about where Britain goes next?

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UnHerd: Why is Sinn Féin rising?

Ever since Ireland gained independence in 1922, every Irish Government has been led by either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael (or one of its antecedents). The two parties emerged from a split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty that paved the way to independence. The side that became Fine Gael accepted the Treaty, and the side that became Fianna Fáil, led by Éamon de Valera, rejected it. The pro-Treaty side, under Michael Collins, won the subsequent civil war but Fianna Fáil soon emerged as the strongest and most popular party in the new Irish state. [...]

But as time has gone on, and the Civil War recedes ever more into the distance, the historical differences between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael seem less and less important and increasingly they are seen as two sides of the same coin. [...]

Irish politics is also unusual in that immigration has barely raised its head as an issue, despite the fact that Ireland actually has a higher proportion of non-nationals living here than almost any other EU country, including Britain. Both the media and the mainstream parties absolutely refuse to permit a debate on the matter, but most of the immigrants to date are from other EU countries and fit in well for the most part. [...]

But every scenario is bound to strengthen Sinn Féin further. A second confidence-and-supply deal makes Sinn Féin the de facto opposition party, and if there is an outright coalition between the two parties, Sinn Féin becomes the official opposition. One way or another, the party of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness will benefit and the next time an election is called it will be running far more candidates and could potentially become the biggest party in the state for the first time since independence almost a century ago. It’s also possible that, if either main parties dumps their leader after the election, they choose a successor willing to cross that line and enter a coalition government with Sinn Fein.

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The Guardian: Arlene Foster signals DUP shift on Northern Ireland border issue

In a break with previous rhetoric where she has strongly opposed treating the region differently to the rest of the UK, Foster said the final deal would have to recognise Northern Ireland’s unique historical and geographical position and the fact it will be the UK’s only land border with the EU.

Asked by reporters if it was possible to see Northern Ireland-only solutions that would not affect the constitutional link with Great Britain, she replied: “Well I hope so.” [...]

She made clear that her idea of an acceptable Northern Ireland-only solution was different to mooted proposals for a Northern Ireland-only backstop, which she said “would bring about customs [checks] between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and that is unconstitutional and undemocratic”. [...]

Echoing words of the party’s chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson earlier this week, she said the solution lay in a joint letter she co-authored with the late leader of Sinn Féin, Martin McGuinness, in August 2016, a document rarely referred to by the DUP in the past two years.

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TLDR News: What Deal Does the EU Want From Brexit?

There's been a lot of talk, on this channel and elsewhere, about what kind of Brexit deal the UK wants. There's been significantly less conversation about what the EU wants out of it. So in this video, we discuss what the EU27 want from Brexit (and more specifically what France, Germany and Ireland are looking for).

Politico: Conservatives rebel against Merkel’s EU top jobs plan

Among the national leaders to speak out against the proposal were Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. That opposition, along with Poland, Romania and other countries that had already voiced resistance to Timmermans, was enough to make the Osaka plan a political nonstarter. [...]

“As EPP, we haven’t agreed to the package that was negotiated in Osaka. I think it’s fair to say there’s a lot opposition to the proposal that was made in Osaka from the EPP’s point of view," Varadkar said, arriving at the Council's Europa building. "The vast majority of the EPP prime ministers don’t believe that we should give up the presidency of the Commission quite so easily, without a fight.” [...]

Rangel noted that the EPP had officially tapped two other prime ministers, Plenković and Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš, as its official negotiators in the leadership deliberations. “Mr. Plenković and Mr. Karins,” Rangel said. “They speak on behalf of the EPP.”

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The New Yorker: The Magical Thinking Around Brexit

Instead, the next two weeks will test how deeply a nation can immerse itself in self-delusion. As a matter of European and U.K. law, Brexit is set to happen on March 29th. Members of the E.U. are frustrated because, even though they have spent two years negotiating a withdrawal agreement with Prime Minister Theresa May, Parliament has rejected it twice, most recently last Tuesday, which means that there is a risk of a chaotic, off-the-cliff No Deal Brexit, without determining new rules for trade, travel, or such basic matters as drivers’ licenses. On Wednesday, Parliament passed a motion saying that it didn’t want a No Deal Brexit, but—in an absurdity within an absurdity—didn’t legally change the deadline. On Thursday, May got Parliament’s approval to ask the E.U. for an extension. (Seven of her own Cabinet members voted against her.) But all of the other twenty-seven member states must approve it, and several have said that they will not do so unless the U.K. comes up with an actual plan for what it will do with the added time. And should the extension be short, or long enough to allow a real reconsideration of whether Brexit is even worth doing? The mood of many European leaders was captured by Mark Rutte, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, who said that he didn’t see the point of just allowing the U.K. to keep “whining on for months.” [...]

There has been a failure, among Brexiteers, to see how Ireland has thrived as part of the E.U.; with the principle of free movement of people and goods fortifying the peace agreement and Dublin’s emergence as a business center, the E.U.’s ideals of shared peace and prosperity have been realized there in a distinct way. At this point, Varadkar, who is forty, gay, and the son of a doctor from Mumbai and a nurse from County Waterford, has more clout in Brussels than May does. [...]

Those words should resonate for Americans. The Brexit debate has been marked by particular British eccentricities, but the tendencies it appeals to—xenophobia, the belief in a lost, past greatness—cross many borders. The adherents of such movements may see the floundering of Brexit as a reason to rethink their assumptions—or, more dangerously, as proof that élites are conspiring against them. The populist dream subsists in an increasingly troubled sleep.

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Quartz: The LGBT political glass ceiling is cracking wide open

It was only in 2009 that Iceland’s Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was elected, becoming the first openly LGBT person in the world to serve as a prime minister. In 2011, Belgium’s Elio Di Rupo became prime minister. In 2013, in neighboring Luxembourg, Xavier Bettle was voted prime minister—a position he still holds. He has since been joined by two additional LGBT leaders: Serbia’s Ana Brnabić, and Leo Varadkar of Ireland, a country that only decriminalized same-sex relations in 1993. [...]

Today, at city, regional and national levels, several thousand openly LGBT politicians have entered the scene—a trend that shows no signs of slowing down. The 2017 elections in the US, for instance, saw important successes for LGBT candidates around America—primarily, but not exclusively, within progressive voters. The number of American LGBT mayors is up to 23—one of them, Peter Buttigieg, is a rising democratic star serving in conservative South Bend, Indiana who came out on the pages of his local paper while in office. Last weekend he married his partner as his town celebrated Pride with the rest of America. In the same year, in the UK, 35 LGBT representatives were voted into parliament (on both sides of the aisle). [...]

Despite the relative diversity of New York City’s political scene, Johnson rejects the idea that being an LGBT representative shouldn’t matter. “Being gay is not like having blue eyes,” he says. He considers his sexual orientation an integral part of his identity—the way he lives, who he loves—and says it will always be associated with his political persona. [...]

In addition to representation, it’s also important that LGBT candidates aren’t reduced to just LGBT issues. This is a stance Ohana clearly embraces, as a member of the hawkish, right-wing Likud party. Back when he first joined Likud, many members “thought I was the first gay [person] they had ever met,” he says. Yet for them, as well as the larger Israeli society, “when they see me, ‘gay’ isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, but my actions and views.”

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Politico: Ireland brings abortion out of the shadows

The overwhelming victory for the abortion rights campaign, which comes three years after voters backed legalizing same-sex marriage, marks the “culmination of a quiet revolution,” said Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who campaigned to overturn the ban.

The result reflects deep disillusionment with Catholic institutions and church influence on the government that follows years of scandals over abuse and the incarceration of women. It also indicates that Ireland can no longer be held up as the Catholic bastion it once was, a blow for the Vatican months before Pope Francis is due to visit the country in August.

The turnout — 64 percent — was unusually high for an Irish referendum, delivering the biggest mandate for a proposal since the Good Friday Agreement. Only one of Ireland’s 40 constituencies, Donegal, saw a majority vote against repeal. [...]

As many as 10 Irish women a day currently cross the Irish Sea for abortions, according to figures from the U.K.’s National Health Service, and an estimated three to five women a day take abortion pills obtained illegally online. [...]

In a poll conducted by Behaviour & Attitudes for RTÉ, around 72 percent of women voted to repeal and nearly 66 percent of men. The Yes vote was 72 percent in urban areas and 63 percent in rural sections.

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The Guardian: Ireland votes by landslide to legalise abortion

Describing the vote as “the culmination of a quiet revolution in Ireland”, the taoiseach said voters had given his Fine Gael-led government “a clear mandate” to bring in legislation that will legalise abortion up to 12 weeks.

Orla O’Connor, the co-director of the Together for Yes campaign, said it was “a monumental day for women in Ireland”, calling the result “a rejection of an Ireland that treats women as second-class citizens”. [...]

Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, stressed that the outcome proved this was “not Dublin versus the rest … not a rural-urban division.”

 One of the first constituencies to declare a result – Dublin Central – had nearly 77% voting yes. Yet even in traditionally conservative Roscommon/East Galway the first tallies from the count showed 57% for yes and 43% for no. Other rural constituencies such as Carlow/Kilkenny also voted 63.5% in favour of change.

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The Economist: Ireland: divided by abortion

Financial Times: What Theresa May can do about her Brexit woes

The Guardian: Ireland's shame: the death of Savita Halappanavar – The Story podcast

In 2012, a pregnant Indian woman died in an Irish hospital. Her death shocked people all over the world. The circumstances of her final days outraged the Irish public, leading to the launch of a movement that would eventually play a role in the recent, historic referendum announcement.

Who was Savita Halappanavar? How did she die? And what can her tragic story tell us about abortion laws in Ireland?

In this episode of The Story, Danielle Stephens speaks to Kitty Holland, the social affairs correspondent at the Irish Times who broke the story, Savita’s friend Dr CVR Prasad, the chair of one of the inquiries into Savita’s death Prof Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran and a legal expert, Eoin Carolan.  

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The New York Times: Ireland Prime Minister Says He Will Campaign to Repeal Abortion Ban

Mr. Varadkar’s announcement came one day after The Irish Times published an opinion poll that suggested a majority of Irish people, 56 percent, favor repealing the constitutional ban and permitting abortion for up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy, as recommended by a parliamentary committee. Only 29 percent were opposed to repealing the ban, a stark change from 1983 when nearly 67 percent of voters approved the introduction of the Eighth Amendment. [...]

If repealed, the constitutional ban would be replaced by legislation regulating abortion, most likely permitting it under at least some circumstances. Mr. Varadkar’s government says it will disclose its proposed legislation before voters act on the constitutional provision, but it has yet to formally agree on what the measures might be. An all-party parliamentary committee voted in December in favor of permitting unrestricted abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy, and later in cases of rape, incest or fatal fetal abnormality. [...]

Several thousand Irish women travel abroad for abortions each year, the majority to Britain. Figures from the United Kingdom’s health care service for 2015 showed that at least 3,400 Irish women had gone to England and Wales for abortions that year.

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The New York Review of Books: Theresa May’s Blue Monday

Yet she found herself entirely outmaneuvered. The British had assumed that the Irish could be relied on to agree that “sufficient progress” had been made even when there was nothing on the table but bland assurances of “no return to the borders of the past.” This was a serious miscalculation, though an understandable one. Britain has always had the upper hand in its relations with Ireland. It was completely unprepared for the reality that Brexit is creating: a rapid waning of British diplomatic power. The Irish government knew that it had all of the other twenty-six EU member states, and the European Parliament, on its side. Since the negotiation process got under way in April, the Europeans have made it clear that their position is Ireland’s position. Britain is isolated; Ireland has powerful allies.

The reasons for this European solidarity with Ireland are a mixture of idealism and realpolitik. On the one hand, the EU genuinely wants to protect the Belfast Agreement and the Irish peace process. For all its problems, that process is a great reminder of the EU’s own primary purpose, which is to end the threat of war in Europe. On the other hand, siding so strongly with Ireland is a very effective way of admonishing the British about what they are abandoning with Brexit—the protection and support of a large multinational institution. There is a simple message: Ireland is one of us and Britain is not. We look after our own.

Britain’s agreement to accept Ireland’s demands is an expression of its weakness: it can’t even bully little Ireland anymore. And this would have been bad enough for one day. But there was another humiliation in store. Having backed down, May was then peremptorily informed that she was not even allowed to back down. She left her lunch with the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, to take a phone call from the DUP’s Arlene Foster, who told her that the deal she had just made was unacceptable. May then had to go back in and tell Juncker that she could not agree to what she had just agreed to. It is a scarcely credible position for a once great state to find itself in: its leader does not even have the power to conduct a dignified retreat.

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openDemocracy: Brexit Britain is displaying its old, dangerous delusions about Ireland

The current British political class seem to have next to no understanding that, in the period since both the UK and Ireland joined the then EEC on 1st January 1973, Ireland has been the UK’s closest ally, advocate and interpreter in EU corridors of power. The last twenty years of UK-Irish relations, of which the Good Friday Agreement is but one part, have also been the most harmonious between the two states since Irish independence in 1922. The backdrop of both countries being in the EU has been a part of this. All of these benefits are now under threat and cannot just blithely be assumed to continue unharmed into the future as the most nonchalant Brexiteers claim.

UK politicians and media feel free to comment on Irish politics and politicians, such as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, in ways unhelpful and lacking subtlety. There seems to no awareness that such comments are read in Irish circles and factored into their responses. The Spectator’s Political Editor James Forsyth wrote at the end of last week, without a hint of irony, that: ‘If British politicians talked about a majority of the Irish electorate the way Varadkar does about Brexiteers, they would rightly be chastised.’ It does make you wonder where a Westminster watcher like Forsyth has been since the Brexit vote.

What drives this delusion and derision towards all things Irish? One major factor is the powerful myopia at the heart of the UK. The British political establishment barely understands the complexities, composition and character of the UK. This lack of understanding has a long history but it’s now becoming a chasm that is vitally important to how Brexit pans out.

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The New York Review of Books: Brexit’s Irish Question

The simplest way to understand how radically Irish identity has changed is to consider the country’s new prime minister, Leo Varadkar. He is thirty-eight and in many ways a typical politician of the European center-right. He is also part Indian—his father Ashok is originally from Mumbai. And he is gay. When Varadkar was born in 1979, over 93 percent of the population of the Republic of Ireland was born there and most of the rest were born in Northern Ireland or in Britain (often as children of Irish emigrants). Ethnic minorities were scarcely visible—just one percent of the population was born in what the official figures charmingly described as “Elsewhere.” Now Varadkar leads an Ireland in which over 17 percent of the population was born Elsewhere. The ultraglobalized Irish economy sucks in migrants from all over the world, notably Poland, Romania, the Baltic states, and Nigeria. [...]

But the Irish radically revised their nationalism. Three big things changed. The power of the Catholic Church collapsed in the 1990s, partly because of its dreadful response to revelations of its facilitation of sexual abuse of children by clergy. The Irish economy, home to the European headquarters of many of the major multinational IT and pharmaceutical corporations, became a poster child for globalization. And the search for peace in Northern Ireland forced a dramatic rethinking of ideas about identity, sovereignty, and nationality. [...]

This reciprocal withdrawal of territorial claims has recreated Northern Ireland as a new kind of political space—one that is claimed by nobody. It is not, in effect, a territory at all. Its sovereignty is a matter not of the land but of the mind: it will be whatever its people can agree to make it. And within this space, national identity is to be understood in a radically new way. In its most startling paragraph the Belfast Agreement recognizes “the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose.” It accepts, in other words, that national identity (and the citizenship that flows from it) is a matter of choice. Even more profoundly, it accepts that this choice is not binary. If you’re born in Northern Ireland, you have an unqualified right to hold an Irish passport, a British passport, or each of the two. Those lovely little words “or both” stand as a rebuke to all absolutist ideas of nationalism. Identities are fluid, contingent, and multiple. [...]

English nationalism is also naive. Wrapped up for so long in the protective blankets of Britishness and empire, it has not had to test itself in the real conditions of twenty-first-century life for a middle-sized global economy. Unlike Irish nationalism, it has not been forced to rethink itself and imagine how it might work in a world where collective identities have to be complex, ambiguous, fluid, and contingent. It does not know how to articulate itself without falling back on nostalgic notions of Britishness that no longer function. And since it is not sure what it is, it is not good at adding those crucial words “or both” and becoming comfortable with an identity that is European as well as English. It gives the most simplistic nationalist definition of “us”—we’re not them.

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America Magazine: Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister is no liberal hero

As he navigates the early days of his leadership, Mr. Varadkar has positioned himself as a leader of “the new European center” and “a republic of opportunity.” He has benefitted from the positive coverage his election generated in the international press, who lauded the election of an openly gay son of an Indian immigrant as a sign of how progressive our tiny little island had become. The New York Times wrote that his rise is evidence that Ireland is rapidly “leaving its conservative Roman Catholic social traditions behind.” [...]

But more significant, his election was not widely hailed as a move toward a new liberal Ireland. Though Mr. Varadkar’s views on contentious issues have softened, he is still among the more conservative members of the Irish parliament. The leadership contest that preceded his election was defined by Mr. Varadkar’s own declaration that he wanted to be a leader for “people who get up early in the morning.” He later clarified that he was describing “a country that rewards work, that rewards people who work hard, that want better lives for themselves, their families, their communities,” but the implied logic was that he had little concern for those who do not get up early or could not get up at all. [...]

But the shift Mr. Varadkar represents is not just a focus on individualism. Former Prime Minister Enda Kenny was known for being evasive and closed off and for his ability to talk around parliament’s questions without giving a clear answer. Leo Varadkar, meanwhile, positioned himself as a straight talker willing to take a contrarian view on contentious issues. And despite the fact that Mr. Varadkar did not bring sweeping changes to the cabinet, when he chaired his first meeting as Taoiseach at Áras An Uachtaráin last Wednesday, it was undoubtedly seen as the changing of the guard from one generation to the next.

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Politico: Leo Varadkar wins leadership of Ireland’s ruling party

At 38, Varadkar, who won 60 percent support in the party’s electoral college, will become the youngest person to lead the Irish government since it gained independence from Britain in 1922. The current minister for social protection is also openly gay and the son of a Hindu immigrant father who was born in India. He trained as a medical doctor. [...]

Varadkar takes over at a time when the country prepares to tackle three major issues which, if handled poorly, could backfire politically on the Irish government, which comprises of 11 Fine Gael parliamentarians, known as TDs, and three independents in cabinet, as well as the agreed support of the main opposition party, Fianna Fáil.

Formal negotiations on Brexit will commence later this month with the future for the border separating the Republic of Ireland from Northern Ireland still unclear, an issue which could have massive implications for the Irish economy.

Added to this is a major housing crisis in the greater Dublin area and the prospect of the fourth referendum in 34 years on the delicate issue of abortion. [...]

A number of back-bench members of parliament who were disgruntled at being overlooked for promotion by Kenny, opted for Varadkar instead of his closest leadership rival Simon Coveney when it became clear three weeks ago that Varadkar’s bid was building momentum.

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