Brexit: A View from Scotland and Ireland (article)

I was doubly shielded from the world of the Brexiteers. I work in a town dominated on the one hand by a university with a high international profile that recruits students and staff from across the world, and on the other by one of the world’s premier golfing centres. One cannot imagine a more cosmopolitan place, and beyond that, it is located in Scotland, where European Union (EU) membership proved far more popular than in any other region of the UK outside of London. From the perspective of St Andrews, leaving the EU makes no sense at all. Here, immigrants and travellers are our lifeblood. This said, it has to be recognized that academics and golf professionals make up a tiny proportion of the UK population and, therefore, our sectional interests cannot be allowed to hold democracy hostage.

One might legitimately ask why Scotland voted so overwhelmingly in favour of remaining part of the EU. To understand this, one has to go back two years to the referendum on Scottish Independence, in which about 45% of the votes cast were in favour of Independence from the UK. Much of the case for Scottish Independence hung upon the fact that common membership of the European Union would mean that most of the advantages gained from the Union of England and Scotland could be retained. This included freedom of movement for people and capital, even if an Independent Scotland could disassociate itself from Westminster’s global role as Washington’s wingman in the spread of global terror and from the archaic constitutional structures of the UK parliament.

As an Englishman by birth and upbringing, I found myself supporting Scottish Independence because I wanted to be governed by a parliament elected proportionately and to see the end of non-elected members in the legislature. I was not concerned with “Scottishness” and “Britishness,” but simply the issues of fairness and democracy. I would gladly support reform of the Westminster Parliament, but we have never been given an opportunity to vote for that. For people like me, shared membership of the EU meant that the location of the border was largely irrelevant; nothing would inhibit my ability to visit friends and relatives in England or transfer funds back and forth across the border. As an academic, attending conferences and negotiating in joint projects would not be in-

Page 155

hibited. Employment law on both sides of the border would be closely harmonised and there would be no problem for my graduate students applying for work in the remnant UK or for us recruiting new colleagues and students from there.

The situation has changed radically now. Were Scotland to become Independent before Brexit, there would be a closed border with its largest economic and social partner, England. It is possible that Scotland and the remnant of the UK might form a common economic area, as Ireland and the UK did before 1973, but that would surely be dependent upon Scotland remaining outside the EU. The dream of a Europe of the Regions, in which small polities were viable as Independent entities strengthened by association, has been seriously damaged.

One issue that has not been discussed widely in the media in the UK is the impact Brexit will have on Ireland. The UK and the Republic of Ireland joined the European Union simultaneously in 1973. Prior to this, as noted above, the two countries had established a curious partnership following on from the break-up of the former United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ireland), which occurred between 1922 and 1949.

When Ireland declared itself a Republic in 1949, cutting its final constitutional ties with Britain, the UK government declared that for legal purposes, Ireland and Irish people would not be regarded as foreign. The motivation for this rather curious state of affairs was to protect individuals and their interests, which had ended up on the wrong side of the border under the new arrangement. It has to be remembered that before the transitional period of 1922-49, Ireland had not been a colony but a fully integrated part of the United Kingdom since 1801. Again, at this point in time, Ireland was also the birthplace of by far the largest immigrant community living in Britain, and the status of Northern Ireland and its population was still debatable, with both the new countries claiming sovereignty over them. There were many thousands of people, like my grandfather Edward Tozer, who was born in Dublin to Irish and English parents in 1893 but was living in England during the transitional period. Making such people choose their citizenship instantaneously, or imposing a decision on them, was not a viable option.

Now however, since the UK is committed to leave the European Union, the British and Irish Common Travel Area and the rights of citizens of Britain and Ireland to avail themselves of pub-

Page 156

lic services, vote in each other’s countries, and serve in each other’s public services cannot be maintained. The boundaries the EU and Britain will set against each other—imagined by most Brexiteers to simply be a refortification of Dover—would also close the back door on Ireland. Perhaps some of these reciprocal rights are merely historical remnants—my grandfather’s generation are nearly all dead now—which no longer have any justification. But our nations, divorcees who still have each other’s door keys, are very closely bound together.

Many high-achievers in British society are Irish by birth and access to British universities and corporations have always allowed Irish citizens to broaden their experiences, even if they eventually resettle on John Bull’s other island. In economic terms, Britain is Ireland’s largest trading partner by far, and much of Ireland’s other European and global trade comes, physically, via Britain. Just as Brexit makes an Independent Scotland less viable economically and socially, so too does it make an independent Ireland less viable. This is the fear that dare not speak its name across the narrow sea, but it is a truth nonetheless.

What of the Northern Ireland peace process? I was six when the troubles in Belfast began; the backdrop to my childhood and youth was the threat of terror and the news from Northern Ireland. We live in a paranoid age with regard to Islamist terrorism now, but the number of atrocities in Western nations has been tiny compared to the regular bombing of British cities in the 1970s and ‘80s. At the same time, British and Irish civilians and policemen were being gunned down in the streets on an almost weekly basis and the security forces in both the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland were drawn into some very dark ethical places. That was an age of terror, far more so than our experience since 9/11.

That all came to an end in the 1990s, partly due to the increasing liberalizing of social attitudes and governmental policies on both sides of the border, which meant that the stakes, the difference between being ruled from Dublin or London, became smaller, but partly also because of the EU. Brussels could fulfill the role of disinterested broker and also provided vast amounts of cash to rebuild the Northern Irish infrastructure and to provide employment and educational opportunities. The border became a complete irrelevance and in 1998 the terrorists came in from the cold: now Martin McGuinness, a former commander of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), is a minister in the devolved administration.

Page 157

 If the United Kingdom leaves the EU, the border will come back and it will be more relevant and more imposing than it has been since it was first established in the 1920s. Mrs. May, the current UK Prime Minster, has famously said that “Brexit means Brexit,” but what Brexit really means is the end of peace in Northern Ireland.

There might be ways around this, but I have little faith in leaders in Westminster or Brussels having the vision to implement them. The land border in Ireland might be left open and Northern Ireland maintained, deliberately, as some sort of back door between the UK and the EU that would channel investment into the region. A colleague of mine who is a Brexiteer and an English nationalist has always stated that should Scotland gain independence, it should be made to take Northern Ireland with it. Nowadays that doesn’t look to be such a daft suggestion. Northern Ireland is much closer to Scotland than England and most of the shipping from the UK to Northern Ireland embarks from Scottish ports. Perhaps the ultimate solution to Northern Ireland would be some sort of federation between Dublin, Belfast, and Edinburgh? Now we are getting into the realms of fantasy; the reality, since the UK has gone ahead with Brexit, will be economic disaster across Britain and Ireland and a return to blood on the streets of Belfast.

Page 158