For the first time since 1171, Ireland has more power than England

Watching Boris Johnson in Dublin, where he came to ask Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to get him out of a hole, I am struck again by how disorienting Brexit has been. Everything we are used to in Anglo-Irish relations has been reversed. For the first time since Henry II invaded in 1171, Ireland has more power than England. Ireland has always been the weaker party: smaller, poorer, less influential in the wider world. Most Brexiters, if they thought about the Irish aspect of their project at all, relied on an eternal truth: Dublin would simply have to play by London’s rules. It is hard to blame them — a habit of mind formed over 800 years is hard to shake off.

But the body language in Dublin is startling: Varadkar confident and fluent; Johnson shifty, fidgety and unsure, his only joke an accidental one: ‘Thirty years — I mean 30 days — ought to be enough if we concentrate our minds.’