Britain’s wartime prime minister Winston Churchill has long been a hero of the current incumbent in No 10 Downing Street. Boris Johnson even penned a ridiculously sentimental biography of the British Bulldog which is more hagiography than history. In fact, the ‘spirit of Churchill’ and rhetoric about an island nation set apart against the continental Europeans has been a key motif of the Brexit push.
And, as Mr Johnson announced yesterday that he had cut a Brexit deal with the European Union, he must surely have been thinking of Churchill’s famous maxim that “this is not the end: it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is – perhaps – the end of the beginning”.
The prime minister’s relief was clear when he tweeted “we’ve got a great new deal that takes back control – now Parliament should get Brexit done on Saturday so we can move on to other priorities like the cost of living, the NHS, violent crime and our environment”.
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But even Boris knows it’s not as simple as that. A withdrawal deal is only the first phase in a long process that will see Britain and the EU interlinked for years to come, perhaps even forever. The ink was hardly dry on the new deal when focus turned to the trade agreement that must now be hammered out between the EU27 and the UK.
Negotiators from both sides will still be seeing a lot of each other over the next number of years, but they deserve a well-earned rest to bask in the glory of doing a deal that many people thought impossible – even just minutes before it was announced.
From an Irish perspective, the deal protects the Good Friday Agreement and the hard-won peace. Notwithstanding the fact that the democratic institutions are not meeting in the North, it’s a sign of the huge progress that has been made that many people take the peace – imperfect as it is – for granted.
But we cannot afford to be complacent. Brexit has substantially destabilised and strained the three-strands of the peace accord: relations between the people of the North, the ‘North-South’ dimension, and the relationship between Britain and Ireland.
Nefarious elements opposed to peace and good relations will continue to seek to exploit that. The appearance of a shadowy masked figure on ‘Channel 4 News’ representing the so-called ‘new IRA’ on Wednesday night should remind us all of the horrors of the past. Outrageously this coward claimed that his paramilitary organisation has popular support in Ireland despite the fact that only a handful of people stand in opposition to the peace process.
This is why everyone needs to stand together and show dinosaurs who would pull us back to the rancour of the past that they have no place in society.
Officials in Dublin, London and Brussels will surely breathe a sigh of relief this morning, but we’re not over the line yet and a degree of caution is well-advised.
Boris Johnson still has to pull the parliamentary arithmetic together and the DUP appears to remain bitterly opposed to the deal.
Arlene Foster is playing a dangerous game and is substantially out-of-step with the people of the North who voted to remain in the EU. Even DUP backers from the farming and manufacturing communities are nervous about the stances being taken by the DUP.
While we have long associated the DUP with the ‘no surrender’ camp, its late leader Ian Paisley eventually came to a space where the line was more ‘no, but’. Whether Ms Foster has the creativity to carry this line remains to be seen, but officials in the treasury are already doing the sums and trying to work out what kind of financial package the DUP would swallow its principles for.
Brexit has always had an emotional element in Ireland that many of the gung-ho Tories have failed to understand or appreciate. Border communities who suffered hugely during the conflict have looked on in exasperation as people like Jacob Rees-Mogg have dismissed concerns about a return to a hard Border as ‘project fear’.
People on the island of Ireland were frightened – and rightly so.
Like many others, I remember queuing at a highly militarised Border for a journey of just a few miles to watch a football match.
I never thought we’d live to see those borders dismantled, and then along came the Good Friday Agreement.
Any infrastructure on the Border would’ve represented a depressing return to past divisions. Even with Stormont closed, the real peace dividend is in communities on both sides of the Border coming together to work in harmony and realising that they have more in common than what separates them.
Brexit drove a horse and cart right through the new atmosphere created by the peace process. Communities that had learned to trust one another suddenly were forced to ask questions about what exactly a shared future means in the context of an exit from the EU.
If Boris can deliver the House of Commons tomorrow, this deal will represent a new beginning for the North and for the entire island of Ireland. But – just like the UK – it is not the end of the road.
The North’s current generation of politicians need to prove that they can face the challenges overcome by their predecessors who created the peace process. Brexit will continue to strain relations but the gap can be bridged if the goodwill is there.
And let’s not forget that the DUP never quite dropped its opposition to the Good Friday Agreement and yet managed to live with it and see Ian Paisley appointed first minister.
An accommodation on Mr Johnson’s deal is surely still not beyond them.
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Michael Kelly: 'DUP risks alienating its support if it rejects a deal that could signal a new beginning for the North'
Michael Kelly: 'DUP risks alienating its support if it rejects a deal that could signal a new beginning for the North'
Britain’s wartime prime minister Winston Churchill has long been a hero of the current incumbent in No 10 Downing Street. Boris Johnson even penned a ridiculously sentimental biography of the British Bulldog which is more hagiography than history. In fact, the ‘spirit of Churchill’ and rhetoric about an island nation set apart against the continental Europeans has been a key motif of the Brexit push.
And, as Mr Johnson announced yesterday that he had cut a Brexit deal with the European Union, he must surely have been thinking of Churchill’s famous maxim that “this is not the end: it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is – perhaps – the end of the beginning”.
The prime minister’s relief was clear when he tweeted “we’ve got a great new deal that takes back control – now Parliament should get Brexit done on Saturday so we can move on to other priorities like the cost of living, the NHS, violent crime and our environment”.
Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.
Log In
New to Independent.ie? Create an account
But even Boris knows it’s not as simple as that. A withdrawal deal is only the first phase in a long process that will see Britain and the EU interlinked for years to come, perhaps even forever. The ink was hardly dry on the new deal when focus turned to the trade agreement that must now be hammered out between the EU27 and the UK.
Negotiators from both sides will still be seeing a lot of each other over the next number of years, but they deserve a well-earned rest to bask in the glory of doing a deal that many people thought impossible – even just minutes before it was announced.
From an Irish perspective, the deal protects the Good Friday Agreement and the hard-won peace. Notwithstanding the fact that the democratic institutions are not meeting in the North, it’s a sign of the huge progress that has been made that many people take the peace – imperfect as it is – for granted.
But we cannot afford to be complacent. Brexit has substantially destabilised and strained the three-strands of the peace accord: relations between the people of the North, the ‘North-South’ dimension, and the relationship between Britain and Ireland.
Nefarious elements opposed to peace and good relations will continue to seek to exploit that. The appearance of a shadowy masked figure on ‘Channel 4 News’ representing the so-called ‘new IRA’ on Wednesday night should remind us all of the horrors of the past. Outrageously this coward claimed that his paramilitary organisation has popular support in Ireland despite the fact that only a handful of people stand in opposition to the peace process.
This is why everyone needs to stand together and show dinosaurs who would pull us back to the rancour of the past that they have no place in society.
Officials in Dublin, London and Brussels will surely breathe a sigh of relief this morning, but we’re not over the line yet and a degree of caution is well-advised.
Boris Johnson still has to pull the parliamentary arithmetic together and the DUP appears to remain bitterly opposed to the deal.
Arlene Foster is playing a dangerous game and is substantially out-of-step with the people of the North who voted to remain in the EU. Even DUP backers from the farming and manufacturing communities are nervous about the stances being taken by the DUP.
While we have long associated the DUP with the ‘no surrender’ camp, its late leader Ian Paisley eventually came to a space where the line was more ‘no, but’. Whether Ms Foster has the creativity to carry this line remains to be seen, but officials in the treasury are already doing the sums and trying to work out what kind of financial package the DUP would swallow its principles for.
Brexit has always had an emotional element in Ireland that many of the gung-ho Tories have failed to understand or appreciate. Border communities who suffered hugely during the conflict have looked on in exasperation as people like Jacob Rees-Mogg have dismissed concerns about a return to a hard Border as ‘project fear’.
People on the island of Ireland were frightened – and rightly so.
Like many others, I remember queuing at a highly militarised Border for a journey of just a few miles to watch a football match.
I never thought we’d live to see those borders dismantled, and then along came the Good Friday Agreement.
Any infrastructure on the Border would’ve represented a depressing return to past divisions. Even with Stormont closed, the real peace dividend is in communities on both sides of the Border coming together to work in harmony and realising that they have more in common than what separates them.
Brexit drove a horse and cart right through the new atmosphere created by the peace process. Communities that had learned to trust one another suddenly were forced to ask questions about what exactly a shared future means in the context of an exit from the EU.
If Boris can deliver the House of Commons tomorrow, this deal will represent a new beginning for the North and for the entire island of Ireland. But – just like the UK – it is not the end of the road.
The North’s current generation of politicians need to prove that they can face the challenges overcome by their predecessors who created the peace process. Brexit will continue to strain relations but the gap can be bridged if the goodwill is there.
And let’s not forget that the DUP never quite dropped its opposition to the Good Friday Agreement and yet managed to live with it and see Ian Paisley appointed first minister.
An accommodation on Mr Johnson’s deal is surely still not beyond them.
Source: Read Full Article