Last week I wrote about how a certain moral bankruptcy permeated Dan O'Brien's recent commentary on Brexit and the backstop.
A similar trend is apparent in the case of Pat Leahy of the Irish Times this weekend. The central point in his latest piece is that the Irish government has a decision to make in relation to Brexit; whether to continue with their backstop policy or whether to give Theresa May a bailout by granting a concession to help her get the deal over the line. He then talks about the form the concession might take and the need for Theresa May to prove in advance that it would be accepted (since her trustworthiness has imploded).
A particularly irritating approach from Leahy here is to mix up his own value judgments with factual analysis. He tells us in a matter-of-fact way that the Irish government still has a decision to make. But whether the Irish government does have such a decision is actually a value-laden statement, and the truth of it depends on one's view as to where responsibility lies.
Most people would subscribe to the philosophy that if you break something you own it. This is why the bank bailouts during the financial crisis caused so much annoyance and disgust - there was a perception that responsibility for causing the problem became separate from responsibility for paying for it.
The Irish government has had no responsibility for the Brexit saga. It did not choose Brexit nor did it choose the red lines. Not even the backstop, which has been vindicated by subsequent events, was really a choice as it was the only real response any Irish government could make in response to the risk facing us.
Notwithstanding all of this Leahy thinks the ball somehow is in our court. He believes that the Irish government has to make a decision on whether to defer the risk of hard Brexit or not. There are a number of problems with this anyway.
Firstly, it's not clear that deferring Brexit would get us anywhere, other than kicking the can down the road for a few years and still leaving the problem of us having to engage with people who we now know are untrustworthy, if not irrational. This point was made by Varadkar and others. Deferring risk means delaying certainty - if the difference is simply one of time, we might as well grasp the problem now.
Secondly, the British government haven't exactly exhausted all of the avenues. The same contradictory red lines are in place and Tory party unity has yet to be properly tested. They still have yet to move out of their political comfort zone. Yet in such a context we are expected to make life as convenient as possible for them by choosing between our own peace and prosperity?
Most importantly, though, even though we haven't broken it, Leahy believes we somehow still own it. Because we stand to get harmed by it, whether by damage to our peace or by damage to our prosperity, the onus is somehow on us to stop it. Such a logic would basically reward and incentivise threats and intimidatory behaviour. In such a situation, I would be of the view that we don't have a decision to make and can only hope for the best and plan for the worst.
Bizarrely, Leahy plays down the political damage a climbdown would do the Taoiseach, on the basis that Varadkar would supposedly find it easier to sell the evasion of an immediate risk of a hard Border now in exchange for the risk of a hard border later. This is very fanciful and would not accord with my understanding of the Irish electorate. If the Taoiseach and Fine Gael were to back down on such a principled stance and simply defer the risk as described above, in the face of British irresponsibility, selfishness, threats, bad faith etc. how could that not be politically disastrous for him? Leahy just asserts that it wouldn't with very little support.
Finally he concludes that it will be Ireland's choice to make and not the EU's and that the situation itself will put pressure on Ireland. Again, this ignores that obvious reality that at this point, the EU clearly feels it has something at stake here itself apart from helping the Irish government. As has been remarked upon widely, if the EU was going to abandon us it would done so by now. Why it hasn't is the real question. The EU wants to make a point of its solidarity and show that delivers for all of its members, including small nations. It's about projecting strength and unity. By speaking of the alleged choice as being only our own, Leahy is presenting a distorted view of the situation where all the pressure is on Ireland.
Is it any wonder Eoghan Harris, the doyen of Irish journalistic shoneenism, has singled out Leahy for special praise in recent columns?
