The british gulliver can’t be tied down indefinitely by the lilliputians of dublin | thearticle

No capital in Europe has more at stake over Brexit than Dublin. Yet nowhere is there more political capital to be made from being seen to beat the British than in the Republic of Ireland. It

will take more than a few hours talking about the backstop to find common ground between Boris Johnson and Leo Varadkar. The British Prime Minister may point out, as politely as he knows

how, that there are no plans to erect border controls on the British side of the border in Northern Ireland. On the contrary, it is the Taoiseach who has talked, tentatively but

significantly, about introducing such checks, albeit only “near” the border rather than on it, in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Varadkar will say that he has no choice but to defend the

“integrity” of the customs union and the single market. Indeed, Ireland has no more discretion on this issue than Brussels is prepared to concede — which is to say, practically none. Where

external borders are concerned, national sovereignty has long since been given away to the EU. Yet at the same time, the Irish are clear that avoiding a hard border with the North is a vital

national interest. Whether or not the security threat is real, the risk of a return to republican terrorism (which would inevitably evoke a loyalist backlash) is not one that any

responsible Irish Government should be forced to take. Hence the pivotal role that the backstop has now acquired in Irish politics. No party wants to be seen to abandon a policy that appears

to square the circle — as long as the British and, crucially, the Democratic Unionist Party go along with it. As everyone now admits, that was never going to happen. Yet the dispute over

backstop still serves a useful purpose for Varadkar. There is a united front against the common British enemy; the only game in Dublin town is, as it used to be in the bad old days, wearing

the green jersey. Yet a ray of hope has appeared, in the stated readiness of some European leaders to discuss alternatives to the backstop. Boris Johnson claims that he has found room for

manoeuvre in his talks with the Germans and French; now he wishes to test Irish resolve too. If there is a long tradition in Ireland of standing up to the British, or even grandstanding,

there is an even longer one of finding a _modus vivendi _with the Republic’s most important trading partner by far. The history of Anglo-Irish relations is one of bellicose rhetoric followed

by climbdowns on both sides of the Irish Sea. In reality, the two sides are not as far apart as they seem — and both are looking for a way out of the impasse. If Johnson had not been

thwarted in his attempt to call an election, he would have had a much stronger hand to play in Dublin. As the threat of a no-deal Brexit, which a week ago seemed imminent, once again

recedes, Varadkar has less incentive to negotiate. For as long as the British Parliament paralyses progress towards Brexit, Dublin will keep up the pretence that the backstop is the solution

rather than the problem. That pretence does not, however, render the search for a genuine solution redundant. Sooner or later, the notion that the British Gulliver can be tied down

indefinitely by the Lilliputians of Dublin is bound be exposed as a fiction. That greatest of Anglo-Irish authors, Jonathan Swift, would have had a field day satirising the delusions of

grandeur that now dominate debates in the Dail. “Undoubtedly,” he wrote, “philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.” The

Irish may persuade themselves that their unequal contest with the British has been reversed because they have the support of the other 26 EU countries. But Europe cares more about resolving

its relations with the UK than it does about little Ireland. If Anglo-Irish trade is disrupted, it will be serious for the British, but catastrophic for the Irish. Better far for Leo

Varadkar to hammer out a bilateral deal with Boris Johnson than find himself thrown under a bus by Brussels.