The recent visit of the Irish Prime Minister to the Whitehouse saw Donald Trump call time on the special dispensation afforded the Republic of Ireland by the USA for tax purposes, highlighting the negative effect that the offshoring of US companies in the Republic is having on the US economy. This, of course, followed his already calling time on their freeriding on defence. As the United States requires the Republic to take on the normal responsibilities of statehood, it is important that the country that has even greater cause to do so, the United Kingdom, should now do the same.
From 1922 until 1998 the Irish Free State, and then the Republic, obtained special treatment from the UK in that it agreed to normal diplomatic relations, notwithstanding the fact that they did not recognise the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. Indeed, from 1937 their constitution formally repudiated the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by laying claim to Northern Ireland. Furthermore, the UK also agreed from 1922 to the Common Travel Area between itself and the Free State/Republic, effectively allowing the Republic to claim the benefits of being a country in its own right, while being shielded from the downsides normally associated with this. The Republic has also depended very much on the UK to provide its defence so that their taxpayers have not had to shoulder this burden, even as they have, at times, harboured terrorists who have sought to attack us.
The Belfast Agreement moved beyond one aspect of this special dispensation in giving rise to the removal of the clauses in the constitution of the Republic laying claim to Northern Ireland. In consenting to this, while securing the provision of a mechanism for a border poll in the event that polling suggests a majority of the people of Northern Ireland want to leave the United Kingdom for the Republic, Dublin effectively recognised the territorial integrity of the UK for so long as a majority of the people of Northern Ireland wish to remain in the UK. The progress represented in this development, however, has now been lost with the imposition of another special dispensation more controversial than anything preceding it.
The book Ireland’s Call relates how in the context of a terrible failure of British leadership, Dublin used the need to find a means of protecting the integrity of the EU Single Market to create an all-island economy that set Northern Ireland apart from the UK single market for goods for some critical purposes. Whereas between 1922 and 1998 the difficulty had been that the Republic claimed the right to make the laws of Northern Ireland, they now worked for what became the Northern Ireland Protocol wherein rather than simply claiming the right to make our laws, they made them without us, not just in one area but in 300! This constituted a more dramatic refusal to recognise the territorial integrity of the UK than that associated with the period 1922 to 1998 and was given legitimacy by the fact that it was carried out with 26 other European States.
It is quite extraordinary that at the same time it was benefiting from the special favour of a Common Travel Area, shielding it from the full consequences of its decision to go it alone, the Republic should seek an arrangement that involved it effectively rowing back on its side of the Belfast Agreement and refusing to recognise the territorial integrity of the UK to an even greater extent than was the case between 1922 and 1998. What is even more, though, this also involved trashing the three central protections of the Agreement: i) the consent protection that there cannot be any change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, save with the consent of the majority of its people; ii) the cross community consent protection that no decisions can be made through Stormont by simple majority if either unionists or nationalists request cross community consent and iii) the democracy protection, requiring it to uphold the right of the people of Northern Ireland to ‘pursue democratically national and political aspirations’.
In this latest quest for special dispensations, the Republic of Ireland has crossed a bright line. The imposition of the Protocol/Windsor Framework has not only benefited the Republic. It also damaged Northern Ireland, disinheriting us from the greater part of our home economy, by means of the imposition of a destructive customs and international SPS border, and disenfranchising us so we can no longer stand for election to make the laws to which we are subject in 300 areas. While people in England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic are deemed worthy of the right to stand for election to make all the laws to which they are subject, the people of Northern Ireland are only deemed worthy of the right to stand for election to make some of the laws to which we are subject. Quite how seeking such a special dispensation helps build trust, preparing for the border poll to which the Republic apparently aspires, beats me.
The experience of constantly being shielded from the normal rules of the game has taken the Republic from a place where not only has it grown accustomed to seeking such benefits but to where it has crossed over, with the help of the EU, into seeking special dispensations that not only benefit it but damage others, including by means of their disenfranchisement. Going forward, there is a desperate need for the Republic to tell the European Union, first, that as a party to the Belfast Agreement they have an obligation to uphold the right of the people of Northern Ireland to ‘pursue democratically national and political aspirations’ from the point at which that right was recognised in 1998, when the people of Northern Ireland had the right to stand for election to make all the laws to which they were subject and, second, that in this context the border solution consistent with this commitment, Mutual Enforcement, must now be adopted.
Jim Allister KC is the True Unionist Voice MP for North Antrim and is a former MEP for Northern Ireland.
