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This articles was published in Briefings for Britain and we republish with their kind permission.
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Novelist and commentator Ruth Dudley Edwards writes that Ireland needs a rethink on membership of the EU. She admires the new book by former Irish Ambassador Ray Bassett reviewed on this site last week.
Although I loved my time at University College Dublin in the 1960s, I emigrated to England as soon as I could in search of a world in which free speech was taken for granted.
As an adult, I wasn’t going to fit in with a society which kow-towed to the Catholic Church and venerated physical force nationalism.
Some things have changed. These days, progressivism, secularism and the European Union are the new sacred cows of the tribe into which I was born but few have the courage to challenge them.
This week the Republic is obsessed with the row about Phil Hogan, who has lost his job as EU Commissioner over his breaching of social distancing rules, but as usual, the discussion is shallow and there is little interest in questioning the wisdom of Irish policy vis-a-vis the EU.
The vigour of the debate over the EU referendum has been uncomfortable in the United Kingdom, but it has also been a tribute to the strength of its democracy.
I’ve begun reading Ireland and the EU Post Brexit, a fascinating new book by one of my heroes, Ray Bassett, a former senior Irish diplomat much involved in the Good Friday negotiations, who was Ambassador to Canada when he retired in 2016.
He could have found various lucrative billets and basked in the goodwill of Irish politicians and ex-colleagues, but he is a true patriot who decided to spill the beans.
That is not easy in Ireland where the media are inclined to silence unfashionable opinions. Scepticism is easily represented as unpatriotic.
But Bassett wrote wherever he could find a platform to challenge what he considers his country’s “blinkered Eurocentric policy on Brexit”.
He had expected misgivings from former colleagues “but did not foresee the level of antagonism that my first article engendered, including a text from a senior official asking that I refrain from ever using the title of ex-Ambassador. It was clear that I was no longer welcome back at my old workplace because I’ve broken a sacred taboo. I had questioned the Irish blind devotion to Brussels and did so publicly.”
Bassett reflects on why Ireland does not have “a strong tradition of challenging accepted norms, within our Government system. The dissenting tradition has been particularly weak in southern Ireland”.
It may be, he suggests, “a legacy of our authoritarian Catholic past, but one thing is certain, contrarian views are rarely welcomed by the Irish establishment. The hierarchical nature of Irish Catholicism demanded communal group loyalty and groupthink”.
He believes the result of suppressing debate has enabled Ireland’s Europhiliac establishment to make terrible policy decisions on Europe – including joining the Euro, frightening the electorate into reversing the democratic results of the Nice and Lisbon treaties, caving into bullying over the bailout, and undermining the Good Friday Agreement and the British-Irish relationship by refusing to work with the UK over border issues and instead subserviently following instructions from Brussels, which has no qualms about sacrificing small countries to strengthen a fundamentally undemocratic institution run by France and Germany.
Bassett did not want Brexit and believes that the refusal of Ireland to help David Cameron get a deal he could have sold to the British electorate was an appalling mistake, but now that Britain is leaving the EU he believes that it is in the interests of Ireland to go, too.
He thinks the Europhile Irish establishment are mistaken in thinking that the public are as supportive of the EU or as Eurorocentric as they are, “but a compliant and generally supportive media” have helped give that impression.
He points out that during the banking crisis and the recession young people mostly headed for the old emigrant destinations – Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA rather than mainland Europe.
And he believes that there is no “emotional or symbolic” or deep ideological pro-European identification”, just a connection based on material gain.
Ireland needs a rethink. For the sake of the future of this island, I hope his book becomes a bestseller.
This article that it first appeared in the Belfast Telegraph.
Yes, Ruth Dudley Edwards, but why should the Irish Republic stop short at just leaving the European Union? If the Irish Republic leaves the EU and rejoins the United Kingdom the whole of Ireland will benefit.
If Irish MPs join the Welsh, Scots and English at Westminster again it will lead to a united Ireland. The Protestants of Ulster will not fear rule from London as they fear rule from Dublin, and Northern Ireland and the Republic can merge and the border disappear. Ireland will be united again.
A faction of Irish MPs, in the House of Commons, will have far more clout there, than in the EU’s counterfeit Parliament. Far more clout, not only because Ireland will have a larger portion of MPs in Westminster than in Brussels & Strasbourg. But also because the House of Commons in Westminster has constitutional power, unlike the pantomime Parliament of the EU.
Ireland is part of the British Isles. Business in the Irish Republic has 88 billion euros invested in Britain, and only 3 billion euros in Germany. Britain has 58 billion euros invested in the Irish Republic, compared with Germany’s 5 billion euros. Ireland’s brightest future is with Great Britain, where so many families from Ireland have settled. Whereas Ireland has a dark future in the European Union.
Thank you for a very interesting article. Personally, I’m very glad Cameron WAS prevented from getting a ‘saleable’ deal.
I also think that U.K.’s tradition of challenging Government norms, has been severely weakened, not just Ireland’s.
However, the book looks like a good and useful voice, challenging the E.U.
Thank goodness, U.K., hopefully, will finally escape and good luck to Ireland if it chooses to follow.
Leading up to the 2016 referendum I was not a strong supporter of leaving the EU, but seeing the contempt with which Cameron was treated, although I thought he was a clown, made me vote leave and I thought at the time it would be just a protest and hopefully lead to some reform (I know, I know) if there was a sizeable vote the same way.
The antics of the Remainers since then have turned me into a solid Leaver. Greater knowledge of the EU and the deceptions involved have helped of course.
Interesting . A brain drain away from EU.
EU certainly can’t afford a brain drain.
To get an answer to the question of why the Irish are so apparently wedded to the EU, I don’t think the author should look beyond the real reasons the UK finally voted for Brexit
In the end the penny finally dropped with the Grass Roots (peasants) that not only was the parliament, establishment and other elite often in the pay of the EU, but serially lying and misleading said peasants about the true motives of the totalitarian dictatorship of the EU so that we finally came to realise they just did not represent us or care a jot for our total sovereignty.
I can only think that the Irish government are similarly out of touch with their grass roots and also for the life of me I cannot understand why a similar fiercely independent country like the Scots should consider rejoining the EU.
Excellent comment Roger Turner. The peasants did finally realise . . . etc. but it was only a relatively narrow majority even then.
Like you I am surprised at the apparent willingness of the Scots to return to EU.
There is something VERY strange going on there. They had a referendum. Now it is all being stirred up again and it is being put about that Scotland has only 2 choices – be dragged out of the wonderful EU against their will, or rejoin it. Surely THAT is a FALSE dilemma. They have devolution. They are no longer treated as an inferior conquered nation. Surely England is a much better neighbour than EU.
I stopped using Farcebook just before the 2014 Scottish referendum when someone very dear to me posted a photo of the Saltire with the words “This is what we will be voting for”. I scrubbed my account immediately.
I would suggest that emotional appeal however misplaced plays a large part in current events. Scots, rightly in my opinion, abandoned the Labour Party in droves at that time and perhaps with a bit more time, the result could have gone the others way.
I don’t think the ex Labour voters have found a natural home, there is still strong antagonism towards the Tories, so I think they may be taking solace in the flag.
But of course individuals may have their own personal reasons for wishing independence (from England). One I heard was on a bus asking the driver to open the door whilst waiting to turn right at traffic lights. The driver informed him that he couldn’t do so, it’s against the regulations. “It’ll all be different after we get our independence” was the retort.
Sigh! but I have to respect that individuals’ right to vote.
Thank you for the support Pauline you say ” but it was only a narrow majority” I don’ t dispute it appears to be only a narrow majority, but this was essentially a contest for hearts and minds and the bare figures belie the actuality
The contest was fought beneath the greatest FEAR blanket ever generated by supposedly responsible and qualified people who should have been prosecuted for conspiracy to use alarm and despondency to service their despicable ends Camoron and his co – conspirators ensured all those in the pay of the EU and government voted their way in case they lost their jobs, in the face of words like “jumping off a cliff” ” an act of utter madness” “calamity” ” you are children of the EU” “there will be no jobs for you in the EU” “business will be pauperised by tariffs” “travel will be circumscribed -passports – visas needed” “trade disrupted”…………. You know the rest…….Oh the killer blow ” you’ll go to the end of the Q/line for a trade deal”
Is it any wonder so many people were intimidated into (doing their duty) and voting to remain) in the face of that I am surprised so many had the guts to see through that and vote LEAVE – it’s attribute to British character and the leadership of Nigel and his team that they did.
Without that FEAR campaign I reckon the Remain vote would have been at best 35 per cent.
Oh and if that isn’t enough didn’t somebody put out World War 3 could commence.
They lied and lied and lied and lied and the b@ggers and enemies within are still doing it