There is growing pessimism among senior Irish Government figures about the prospects for agreement between the British government and the EU on the Northern Ireland protocol, and acute concern over the implications of the continuing dispute for political stability in the North.
Public statements by Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney in recent days have provided a window on the current feelings in Dublin.
And
while some officials and under-the-radar contacts continue, even at
ministerial level this week – and Taoiseach Micheál Martin stressed the
need for dialogue between the EU and UK on Wednesday – the truth is that
relations between Dublin and London continue to trundle along at a
nadir. Unsurprisingly, Ministers and officials are deeply worried about
that.
For
months it has been both an analytical problem and a diplomatic parlour
game in Dublin, trying to figure out if Boris Johnson’s government
actually wants a solution to the protocol problems, or is it just
interested in stoking division with the EU for domestic political
purposes.
Not just in Dublin, either; in his Lisbon speech on Tuesday, the EU’s Brexit minister and chief negotiator David Frost specifically denied that Downing Street saw any domestic political advantage in continuing Brexit disputes.
This
is widely disbelieved in many EU circles. In Dublin, there are mixed
views. One senior official reckons it’s a bit of both; part searching
for a solution, part happy to continue a fractious process that offers
the potential for “Boris bashes Eurocrats” headlines.
What
concerns Dublin most is not the British motivation but the results of
the continuing conflict over the protocol, and the potential for further
political polarisation and destabilisation in the North.
Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie,
highly thought of in Dublin, warned of the need for the EU and UK to
open meaningful negotiations in order to find a solution. The possible
consequences are clearly on his mind too.
“A brick will turn into a petrol bomb and a petrol bomb will turn into a coffin,” he warned.
Under pressure from the protocol disputes, he said, Stormont institutions could collapse; indeed DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson
has expressely threatened this move. “If Stormont collapses, there’ll
be a power vacuum and a power vacuum can lead to violence,” Beattie
said.
This
realisation is shared in Dublin and it is what is driving the
Government’s silent and barely concealed fury with Frost and Johnson.
One
senior Government official involved in Northern Ireland affairs tells
colleagues on an almost daily basis that the Conservative administration
in Westminster are “vandals” when it comes to the Belfast Agreement. They will destroy it without a second thought, the official warns.
Tweets by Johnson’s former adviser Dominic Cummings
claiming that the prime minister signed up to the protocol as a
deliberate act of deception have only heightened feelings in Dublin and
around the EU.
“Frost
has blown out of the water any idea that they are acting in good
faith,” said another source. “The only question is how much damage they
are prepared to do to Northern Ireland and to the Good Friday
Agreement.”
Irish Times