Five years ago today, I awoke to a beautiful Mayo morning in my father’s town.
As I walked the Greenway into the centre of Westport, I had an elated, almost giddy feeling.
That’s because I was convinced that the Brits had scored an epoch altering own goal.
My only nagging doubt was that they would come to their collective senses and fail to trigger Article 50.
Of course, I needn’t have worried.
Back home in Donegal, in the months that followed, there were several meetings and many private conversations among the Republican Family in this border county.
Your humble correspondent had one clear message throughout:
“This will make Partition an issue for the European Union, which will nudge Dublin in our direction.”
I wrote this piece for Bella Caledonia BEFORE the Brexit vote in 2016, and it is perhaps worth re-visiting now.
What was clear to me was that a hard Brexit (the UK leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union) would bring the Border back onto the political agenda in these islands.
I knew that it would come down to this; either the frontier with the EU would be at Lifford or Larne.
Those were the only choices.
In the end, Boris blinked and threw Narne Arne under the big red bus, and the political lexicon was given a new term, the Protocol.
Even today, that remains the centre of a dispute between Brussels and London.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZZvLVhhjJs&ab_channel=ChannelBrexit
Two years after the IndyRefvote in 2014, Brexit breathed life into the separatist cause in pro-remain Scotland.
The disaggregation of the UK, a polity built for empire, will be messy.
However, it can allow a small country to escape from a constitutional arrangement that no longer suits its people.
Scottish independence, a matter entirely for the people of Scotland, is not good news for the Ulsturr Scatch of Narne Arne.
Folk like poor Sammy.
I wrote at the time that Brexit would prove to be “a slow-moving Suez Crisis”, and I haven’t altered my view on that.
Just like in 1916, Ireland’s British problems with Brexit has been assisted by our exiled children in America and gallant allies in Europe.
Boris was recently reminded of this reality at the recent G7 in Cornwall.
Seasoned observers who were there said that he looked like an isolated forlorn figure.
My Maroon buddy rather beautifully summed up the geo-political realities for Boris.
In many ways, that is the embodiment of Brexit.
In seeking to have a larger footprint on the global stage, harking back to the days of Pax Britannica, they will end up diminished and increasingly disregarded.
In the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum, there was much gushing gammon pish about “Empire2.0”.
The reality is much more sobering and this from Polly Toynbee today in the Guardian does not miss.
“Look at almost any industry and you find too much damage done to fit in this space: vanishing EU workers, no EU arrest warrant or crime data sharing, the loss of Erasmus, EU visitors handcuffed at our airports, and EU citizens here in peril of being failed by the Home Office, in a manner redolent of the Windrush scandal – a poisonous message that will deter EU tourism.”
Indeed, the triumphalism of the Brexiteers led some folk in Britain, probably for the first time, to examine Britain’s shameful colonial past.
Meanwhile, the imperialist nostalgia remains strong in some of them.
I agree with James O’Brien that this North Korean move by the Department of Education would not have been possible without Brexit.
Despite O’Brien’s derision, this ditty might make it onto the Ibrox song sheet.
Of course, they would have to add in some anti-Irish racism.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t work for the Ibrox klanbase.
I wasn’t at all surprised when my craic dealer Tadhg Hickey nailed it.
Dear reader, the very idea that the Brits need to have a “Freedom Day” is utterly risible.
Many countries at the United Nations do have genuine liberation celebrations.
For the avoidance of doubt, a substantial number of them appear to be celebrating freedom from the Brits!
Although the idea of a new Sevco Empire, which pretends to be the old one to please the gammons, is laughable Perfidious Albion hasn’t gone away, you know.
The high degree of mistrust in Europe towards the Brits is entirely justified, and I would agree with this assessment.
The Brexit vote and the ensuing chaos at Westminster, caused by their unwritten shambles of a constitution, produced a forest of books.
These are just some that are on the working bookshelf-the ones that I need to have to hand on a normal day here.
Undoubtedly the pick of the bunch is Tony Connelly’s work.
It is a forensic analysis of how Irish diplomats in Brussels complete outmanoeuvred the Brits from the early days of Brexit.
If you were to get one book from that pile, it should be TC’s.
Tony is the headline act in RTEs’ brilliant podcast “Brexit Republic”, it’s available on the dual platform (Spotify etc.).
My reason for dandering into Westport that morning in June 2016 was to meet with a man who was active in the local history scene.
He was an elderly gent who remembered my late father from back in the day.
We had met the previous May when I had attended the centenary commemoration of the Westport 31.
The men who had been deported to Wales, to Frongoch Camp after the Rising.
One of them was my father’s uncle Volunteer Michael Derrig.
The Westport man got the tae on that day, and I told him the big news; “the Brits have voted for Brexit”.
His reply was strident and unequivocal, “it’s good enough for them. Fekkin Tans!”
I, of course, couldn’t possibly comment.
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You still don’t get it. Brexit will mean you and the rest of Ireland will be paying more tax and get less back due to the UK not giving Billions of pounds to wasters.
For a long time Ireland benefitted from being in, as they got out more than they put in and only recently ( relative term ) Ireland has paid in more, however once it hits home that there is a huge short fall, Ireland and others will have to step in and cover the losses.
How long before you and the rest are squealing to leave too?
Our world leading United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will continue to thrive for millennia to come. Thank god for our prime minister the right honourable Boris Johnston statesmanlike, articulate, erudite, humble, decent and a born winner with a winners instinct. Boris played the EU like a fiddle, vaccinated a nation and watched as the hapless Europeans drowned in a filthy covid pit of there own making. Hell mend the lot of them.Kind regards Jimmy
I think you meant ‘their’ as opposed to ‘there’. I also think you meant to say that Boris fiddled as opposed ‘played… like a fiddle’. In truth Boris played the buffoon.
Best laugh of the weekend, Jimmy, thanks. 😂😂😂 HH
I voted Brexit in rejection to the Neoliberalism that the EU is run and controlled by.
In old terms we used to call it Thatcherism here in the U.K..
You might remember it Phil?
The very same Neoliberalism that will see another Financial crash head Europe’sThe West’s way in the not too distant future.
I also voted Brexit fully realising that it would force the Westminster Government’s hand in Northern Ireland and subsequently fast track the eventual Unification of Ireland.
Something I’m acutely aware you have been hoping for.
Those who voted Brexit should thanked by the Irish that wish for a United Ireland not lambasted or ridiculed because we reject the notion of a European Superstate or a few thousand racists voted for their own warped sense of Nationalistic pride.
A European Superstate that incidentally has plans for its own defence force and already has in place a jacked up makeshift Navy under the guise of the EMF.
All of which is controlled indirectly by the ECB in Frankfurt.
If you cannot see the irony in degrading one former Empirical force only to be ruled by another then I’m sorry you aren’t as observant as you seem to think you are Phil.
Many of you seem to be sleepwalking into yet another disaster.
Perhaps the swathing Austerity cuts that will swiftly follow will wake you up this time?
Eyes wide shut.
As per…..Boris is fantastic at agreeing to pacts…not so good at conducting them.
The “brit empire” he promises is so far fetched they need to make a sitcom around the overreaching idea.
The recent G7 was a stage for Boris to show the (british) public, that he could mix with the other countries of the world…..unfortunately the british MSM was the only media who reported what Boris and his third reich brothers wished you to hear and see.
In truth Boris was warned by the French and Americans about his failures in relation to sticking to agreements ,especially norn ire……
The union is doomed to failure….thats only a matter of time….
This government has been so corrupt…told so many lies and brole so many agreements that only the most diehard brit lover could possibly stick with it.
Scottish independence could have begun the split several years ago….but the then conservative government did a masterclass show of pure magic by lies and deciet to convince JUST enough, that independence was bad for them.
The present scottish government under Nicole Sturgeon has either attempted to pander to the Ibrox mob or she has shown her true blue colours by allowing recent footballing events in george square etc to happen.
Does she not realise that the wearers of the butchers apron will Never have a change of heart…because that would be an end to queen…red hands and orange walks…..the stuff the ibrox brethern live for.
Brexit is the only deal I know ofwhere the working classes voted to have less.
As for “freedom day”…..what a joke….freedom in a country where they wont let you travel without giving up your freedom on return.
Boris….the best clown in town
As a young niece of mine put it. The Tories are an open goal and the Labour Party are incapable of scoring. That’s what’s keeping them in power and is likely to continue to do so.
The Labour Parliamentary Party and Head Office colluded to defeat itself because their leader was a free thinker and not a member of a secret society.
Shame on them and their new clownshoe Sir Keir Stauner.
An establishment stooge placeman – bought and paid for spy in the camp and to think idiots in the party put him in place because “he looked the part”.
Labour will be lost for generations for selling out.
There are more “walks” in Scotland now under the leadership of Nicola Koresh and her party then there have ever been.
She’s from Ayrshire, she’s one of them. The big clue is in their party name Scottish Nationalists!
They don’t like Irish and they don’t like Catholics.
Be very careful what you wish for.
A United Ireland will mean an influx of “Ulster Scots” who will be welcomed with open arms into this bigoted toilet of a country.
Catholic schools will be abolished and the turkeys who plucked themselves, basted themselves in butter and turned the oven on will sit and wonder what happened.
I find it incredible the sheer number of people who think that the “unionists” are a dying breed. Did you see what happened this year as the establishment stood back and let the lower class outlet of supremacy ride roughshod over all Covid regulations whilst they battered the Tims at every turn? That’s just the football for starters.
There are 3.5 million of the populace in Scotland whose default setting is most certainly not pro Irish or pro Catholic. The minority will be crushed after guaranteeing power forever to the establishment mob.
If a modern Scotland had parity or a passing acquaintance with tackling the real racist problem on these shores there might be reason for hope.
That’s before we even start with the calibre of politician required to actually make the country function.