Has Varadkar overplayed his hand on Brexit?

Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on Tuesday reemphasised that the border backstop remains a bottom line for Ireland in any Brexit deal. He said on Thursday that preparations for a no deal Brexit are no longer contingency plans, they are being implemented.

“A no-deal scenario would have a deeply negative impact on jobs, on the economy, particularly the traded and agri-food sectors, our farmers and fishermen, our rural economy, our businessmen and women all over the country,” he said.

But hold on. This shouldn’t be happening. The supposed success and popularity of the Irish government’s strategy rested on eliminating no deal and locking the UK into the backstop. If there is no deal, and the EU has to look at imposing a harder border, then was the Irish policy a failure? That prospect now looms as a possibility and there is concern in Ireland.

Brexit’s effect on the Irish economy is now a source of huge anxiety for the Taoiseach. And while negotiating the backstop may have originally been a diplomatic triumph for Ireland, blunders made early on by Varadkar and foreign officer Simon Coveney may have sealed the fate of the policy before it was even the subject of serious negotiation. The DUP has consistently made it clear that it can support no deal that contains any backstop arrangement. Varadkar and Coveney are then possibly set to be victims of their own diplomatic success.

Ireland had two priorities in the negotiations, obviously. To minimise the impact of Brexit on the Irish economy, and to preserve the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement. Naturally then, Varadkar preferred a customs union solution, but in the absence of that, he sought the backstop insurance policy. As Mary Murphy, lecturer at University College Cork remarks: “The Irish government’s support for the backstop is a pragmatic rather than a political position – a means to maintain existing practices and conditions on the island of Ireland.”

But the pragmatism involved in securing a backstop was overshadowed by foolish rhetoric on behalf of the Taoiseach and foreign secretary early in the negotiating process. In November 2017 Simon Coveney addressed an Oireachtas Committee and said: “I am a constitutional nationalist, I would like to see a united Ireland in my lifetime. If possible, in my political lifetime.” Just one month later Varadkar made a statement: Nationalists in Northern Ireland “will never again be left behind by an Irish government.” Explicitly nationalist sentiment unsettled the DUP and forced them to question Ireland’s motivations behind Brexit negotiations.

That was inflammatory rhetoric that never needed to be introduced. There is, in fact, no appetite to push for a united Ireland in the Republic right now, as Mary Murphy points out: No policy, no meetings, no meaningful civic movements, and an expressed reluctance of the major parties to get into bed with nationalists Sinn Féin. Ireland’s priorities in the negotiations remained throughout: Preserve the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement and minimise the impact of Brexit, a democratic decision they did not make for themselves, on Ireland’s economy.

But the effect of their rhetoric has been simple – it triggered sensitive anxieties in Northern Ireland’s DUP, a party whose foundational purpose is to preserve Northern Ireland’s place in the Union. Of course, the DUP have become suspicious and unwilling to engage on the very concept of a backstop, if they believe the machinations behind it are to secure steps towards a united Ireland.

The Irish government got the DUP fired up. Of course, it was foolish of the DUP to overreact to a diplomatic play by Irish ministers that does not in any material way endanger the Union – after all, there is no appetite in the Republic or the North for reunification. Railing against the backstop based on a phoney threat of Irish reunification, while eschewing the desires of their constituents could spell ruin for the party.

Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly against Brexit, and Northern Irish people want the backstop. In fact, the part of the UK that has done the best out of May’s flawed deal is probably Northern Ireland. When Tory Heidi Allen MP criticised the spectacle of parliamentary navel-gazing in the Commons last week she inadvertently hit the nail on the head of the DUP’s problem. Arlene Foster and Sammy Wilson along with their Westminster cronies are focussed on their nebulous commitment to an unthinking unionism for which they have only half a mandate. Little to no respect is shown by the DUP for those they claim to represent in Northern Ireland, who have different views in the greatest constitutional question of their political lifetimes, Brexit.

That may be right. But it is too late. The DUP acting on a faux-threat of reunification has lead to this impasse on the backstop.

Meanwhile Varadkar and Coveney may, minus a late shift, turn out to be victims of their own success, if this all ends in no deal. Securing the backstop was their primary aim. But, the backstop may be exactly what drives the UK out of the EU with no deal. In the event of that, it is the Republic and the North that are likely to suffer the most. Pride comes most often before a fall.

Coveney and Varadkar approached Brexit with a strategy based on their calculation that Britain would never leave the EU without a deal. They are not mendacious and have had their diplomatic successes along the way. But the danger that now hangs over Ireland is no deal caused by their backstop. Approaching negotiations in good faith does not mean you are right – Coveney and Varadkar may have made a massive miscalculation, one which will cause irredeemable damage to the island.