Ireland

If we do get a good Anglo-American trade deal, we should thank Trump’s mother

In an uncharacteristic fit of almost-robustness, Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan has said she is ‘open-minded’ about scrapping the BBC licence fee and replacing it with a Netflix-style subscription service. Good idea. What would we actually miss if we didn’t subscribe? Not an awful lot in my view. Some people cite David Attenborough’s nature documentaries but I certainly wouldn’t now that they have become so obtrusively propagandistic. The problem with the BBC isn’t — and never has been — lack of talented filmmakers, wildlife camera crews, presenters, actors, writers or production teams. It’s that, from news to drama, the BBC’s woke politics now subsume and corrupt its entire output. Still, the

Letters: parliament has a responsibility to stop Brexit

Parliament’s responsibility Sir: I always enjoy reading the intelligent and outspoken Lionel Shriver. But her latest article (14 September) puts forward an invalid argument. As Ms Shriver points out, no one in the USA seriously argued that the disaster of Trump’s election, and the damage it could cause the country, meant the result should be contested. She compares this with the fact that many in the UK want to overturn the EU referendum result; and concludes from this that our political system is ‘broken’. But had an election been fought here, with one party promising Leave and the other Remain, few would be seriously arguing for the overturn of the outcome

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

Letters | 25 July 2019

Rose is the right choice Sir: Every Wednesday for the past nine years, it has been my privilege to attend the lunchtime Eucharist services in the Parliamentary Chapel, conducted by the Speaker’s Chaplain Rose Hudson-Wilkin. These routine acts of worship are not public, but are attended by parliamentary staff, MPs and peers. Central to them are Rose’s homilies and prayers, which are spiritual life-support to those of us who serve and navigate our increasingly fraught politics. I did not recognise the person described by Ysenda Maxtone Graham in her article (‘Kent’s new Rose’, 20 July) and noted with some concern the author’s emphasis on perceived political agendas, which we are

Bad science

Kill Climate Deniers is a provocative satire by Australian theatre-activist David Finnigan. The title sounds misanthropic and faintly deranged but the show is a comedy delivered with oodles of verve and fun. Finnigan is a skilful writer of dialogue, a gifted farceur and, at times, an astute analyst of power and its corrupting tendencies. Like most Aussies, he’s incapable of pomposity and his show takes a pop at every player in this game: the politicians, the shock jocks, the sainted Greens and the media. A TV journalist has the surname ‘Ile’ — an anagram of ‘lie’. Finnigan reminds us that the bulk of eco-warriors are white middle-class malcontents whose priority

Derailing Brexit isn’t Leo Varadkar’s only aim

I agree with much of Liam Halligan’s analysis of the Irish government’s approach to Brexit (‘Good Friday disagreement’, 20 April). However, I think he omits an important point. Leo Varadkar is not merely attempting to derail Brexit; he is also hoping to achieve a united Ireland. For decades politicians, officials and journalists in the south have privately peddled the line to gullible counterparts in Britain that the Dublin establishment has been ambiguous about whether it really wanted the North with all of its myriad problems, but this is and always has been a lie. The Good Friday Agreement was clearly perceived behind closed doors in Dublin as a key transition

Back door to Britain

I was working in Johannesburg when I first got wind of the fact that Ireland has become an illegal back door to the UK. If you’re from a country such as South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Fiji or Guyana, you need, not just a passport, but a prearranged visa, obtained from the local embassy for a fee, before you can even board a plane to Britain. It takes time, your details are checked, and you need to show a reason why you’ll go home at the end of your stay. In the 1980s most African nationals could come to Britain visa-free. But worries about terrorism and crimes committed once in the

Lyra McKee’s murder is nothing to do with Brexit

Emily Thornberry reached a new low today. At Prime Minister’s Questions, she turned the Commons’ heartfelt offering of condolences to the family and friends of Lyra McKee into a tirade against a Hard Brexit. In reply to David Lidington — who was standing in for Theresa May, who is attending McKee’s funeral — Thornberry said the murder of McKee by the New IRA is a ‘sickening’ reminder of the violence of the past and evidence why a solution to the Irish border question is necessary. She appeared to land on the argument that in order to avoid a hard border in Ireland – and to avoid the kind of terrorist violence

Good Friday disagreement

The relationship between the UK and the Republic of Ireland has ‘reached a hunger-strike low’, says a new study by an academic from Trinity College, Dublin. ‘Relations have not been as tense since the early 1980s and political rhetoric that had vanished by the 1990s has re-emerged,’ the paper grimly concludes. The fragility of relations between Britain and Ireland is hard-wired into me. Having grown up ‘London-Irish’ in the 1970s and 1980s, all I ever wanted was for the two countries that define my ethnicity to get on. The Maze Prison hunger strikes of 1981 and subsequent Republican bombings in London and Brighton — where, lest we forget, the British

Bonne chance, Ireland

Seventy years ago this month, a prime minister led a divided nation towards the exit from what was then one of the world’s most important organisations. On that occasion, Ireland was the country wanting to leave and there was no backstop to hold things up. Despite the pleas of the other member states, the Irish walked out of the Commonwealth. I was reminded of that moment this week as the budding bromance between the Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and France’s President Emmanuel Macron unfolded. Relations have never been better, Mr Varadkar cooed to nods from M. Macron. As well he might. For Varadkar has just returned his nation to the

Would the real St Patrick have appreciated the contemporary marketisation of his Saint’s day?

St Patrick’s Day, on 17 March, is now regarded as a prime opportunity for Irish politicians to travel abroad on a mission for ‘brand Ireland’. They fly off overseas, armed with the symbol of the shamrock, alerting their hosts to the shiny new liberal Ireland which is such a fabulous investment opportunity — and don’t forget the low corporation tax! Few national saints have the global reach of Patrick: it has been calculated that church bells ring out in 800 worldwide locations to celebrate the feast day of this Roman Briton who brought Christianity to Ireland in the early 5th century. Jewish bakeries in New York sell green bagels and

Why reawaken the IRA?

When politics goes round in circles, the columnist inevitably revisits issues that would have been sorted if only everyone read The Spectator. So: back to the Irish border — a demarcation that takes up no geographical space, but has still mysteriously dominated a dozen years of my life. Oh, well. What’s one more afternoon, then? Derry’s recent car bomb underscores a curious omission in all the Brexit argy-bargy about a ‘hard border’. Throughout, neither May, nor Barnier, nor even Varadkar ever utters the letters I, R and A. Yet the scummy residue of this vanquished potato blight lies at the heart of the hysteria about hypothetical border infrastructure that could

Death becomes her | 6 December 2018

‘Without death,’ says Salena Godden, ‘life would be a never-ending conveyor belt of sensation.’ For her death is what gives meaning to life and to be able to imagine your own death should make you try harder to be a better person. Mrs Death Misses Death on Radio 4 (produced by Cecile Wright) is not a programme for the faint-hearted. Godden, a poet, novelist and musician, faces with robust clarity what many of us would prefer to distract ourselves from thinking about. She argues that Death is much more likely to be a woman; not the usual caricature of a hooded male figure carrying a sickle. She’s that invisible woman

Letters | 29 November 2018

The Irish border Sir: Contrary to the assertion that the Irish border ‘only hit the headlines’ after Leo Varadkar became Taoiseach in June 2017, as Liam Halligan claims (‘Irish troubles’, 24 November), the negative impact of Brexit on the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement was clearly signalled during the referendum campaign itself, including by the Irish government and by two former British prime ministers, Sir John Major and Tony Blair. There was no discontinuity in policy when Leo Varadkar succeeded Enda Kenny as Taoiseach, as reflected in the latter’s statement in February 2017. ‘The Irish government will oppose a hard border… This is a political matter, not a legal or

Irish troubles

How did we get into this Brexit mess? Why is it proving so difficult to leave the EU? Was it Theresa May’s botched 2017 election, which vaporised her Commons majority? Or perhaps her general incompetence and lack of vision? How about the fierce determination of Europhile civil servants to save stupid Leave voters from themselves, cooking up a half-in-half-out withdrawal guaranteed to split the Tories? Maybe it was the cynical ambivalence of HM’s Opposition, with Labour simultaneously backing both Brexit and a second referendum, having always intended to cause chaos and spark a general election by voting down the UK’s exit, contradicting its own manifesto? Then there’s the relentless big

The Irish border issue is no mere sideshow – and UK ministers are mostly to blame

We may or may not hear news soon of a settlement of the Irish border issue that will allow Brexit to proceed without the calamity of ‘no deal’. Word this week was that Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar might offer a compromise ‘review mechanism’ for the ‘backstop’ which might otherwise leave the UK locked in a customs union — but like me, you’re probably none the wiser as to what that actually means. History will judge this episode as a disgraceful example of politicians bluffing in the face of tough choices rather than explaining complexities or acknowledging hard facts — set out, in this case, in a Northern Ireland Affairs select

The Spectator Podcast: Brexit, Bellingcat, and bondage with ethics

This week, Brexit negotiations grind to a halt again as Brussels and the UK draw mutually exclusive red lines on the Irish border problem. We talk to James Forsyth and Dan Hannan on what next for Brexit. We also look a little deeper into the methods and mission of Bellingcat, the investigators that unveiled the true identities of the Salisbury suspects. And last, we investigate a sex industry that is trying to become more ethical. Brexit negotiations have hit a brick wall again, and this time, no deal looks closer than ever before. The latest snag over the Irish border seems impossible to solve. But all this is a EU

James Forsyth

The Irish problem | 18 October 2018

The story of Britain and Ireland’s relationship has, all too often, been one of mutual incomprehension: 1066 and All That summed up the view on this side of St George’s Channel with the line that ‘Every time the English tried to solve the Irish question, the Irish changed the question.’ But Theresa May’s problem right now is that the Irish — and the European Union — won’t change the question and the only answers they’ll accept are unacceptable to Mrs May and her cabinet. To the astonishment of many, the Irish border has become the defining issue of Brexit. There is now a serious and growing risk that the issue

Paddy powerless

In February, I spoke at the first ‘Irexit’ public meeting in Dublin, a discussion about options for Ireland in the event of various eventualities arising from Brexit or some more fundamental disintegration of the EU. Nigel Farage was among the speakers, so what might otherwise have been ignored became the focus of finger-wagging by the media ayatollahs. Punctuating the speeches were videos about Ireland’s economy, resources, history–in-the-EU and so forth. One featured a classic Irish rock song by the venerable fivesome Horslips, a rock band of the 1970s. The song was ‘Dearg Doom’ (Red Destroyer), which turns on a riff based on an Irish march, ‘O’Neill’s Cavalry’. After the Irexit

Opposites attract

‘Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn’t know if she would ever find out where it was and become part of it.’ This is the most frustrating part of being alienated and young. You hope that there’s a better life in store for you but you can’t yet bank on it. Sally Rooney appeared two years ago with Conversations with Friends and has rightly been fêted as one of the most important writers of her generation. The question of generation matters because she’s writing about young people. Both novels feature protagonists who are undergraduates in Rooney’s own