Casement Park will be on the agenda when the taoiseach meets Keir Starmer at Chequers today. We know that because Simon Harris told us on Sunday. However, it’s not the items on the agenda that are important but the very fact of the meeting itself.
It’s a subset of the new British government’s project to reset relations with the EU and the international community at large. That will be a slow and painful exercise.
Luckily for Starmer so soon after being elected he has had opportunities to meet government leaders at the Nato summit in Washington last week and on Thursday hosts the European Political Community (EPC) at Blenheim Palace where about 45 European heads of government will gather.
On Thursday evening he will have dinner with President Macron whose brainchild the EPC is. The EPC is a talking shop with no political declaration issued at the end of the meeting, but it’s the opportunity to meet and mingle which is itself important to Britain.
For that reason the invitations to Harris and Macron for individual meetings at Chequers send a pointed signal. There hasn’t been a French president there since François Hollande in 2015. When can you last remember a taoiseach being invited to Chequers?
Ireland and France are nearest to Britain and have therefore been most affected by the poisonous fallout from Brexit. Casement may be on the agenda but it’s not the main priority: trade is.
Britain repeatedly postponed the introduction of import regulations on goods from the EU, first because procedures like inspections weren’t ready and secondly because of the inconvenience and enormous expense caused to British business.
Finally, earlier this year import regulations were imposed in fits and starts with all the predicted chaos, delays and loss of perishable goods ensuing. Many EU companies, especially small traders, have simply stopped doing business with Britain. Starmer wants to find some way to mitigate the self-inflicted damage of trade import rules on Britain. Harris wants to find ways to mitigate the impact on Irish exports, particularly of beef and dairy produce, through Holyhead.
Surely in the grand scheme of things Casement Park is a small matter? More cash from cash flush Dublin and cash as a gesture of good will from Britain would help smooth relations
Starmer also wants to find ways to improve Britain’s financial services’ access to the EU financial centres and banks because the City of London has been so badly affected by Johnson’s dire Trade and Cooperation Agreement. EU financial regulations stipulate that when trading in EU companies (like Volkswagen, Airbus and BNP Paribas) is done by EU firms, it must be transacted within the bloc. Billions of euros therefore left London the day after the TCA came into force in 2021.
The Irish government is anxious to develop financial relations between Dublin and London and also to support Britain’s case in Brussels. Harris has already instructed Dublin ministers to engage with their British counterparts across a range of matters.
As far as local matters are concerned, we can now safely say that the red, white and blue ‘Safeguarding the Union’ paper, known to loyalists as the ‘Donaldson deal’ but more correctly, the ‘Duping the DUP’ con job Gavin Robinson and Emma Little-Pengelly helped negotiate, is a dead duck.
Starmer’s manifesto commits to operating the Windsor Framework. The all-Ireland economy is proceeding at full steam and bringing benefits to businesses north and south. There’s no doubt Starmer will want to improve Britain-EU trade relations, but the north’s unique arrangement will remain because it suits traders north and south.
Starmer may want to negotiate a veterinary agreement to ease trade with the EU but it will take years because Starmer has tied his own hands by refusing to contemplate joining the single market or customs union. The EU, and particularly France, will want something in return, most likely about fisheries. Starmer will have to accept some EU rules.
None of these negotiations will begin until 2025 and will be slow because the EU now is not the same EU Britain left in 2021 and anyway Brussels likes its side of the deal. Brexit is a bye ball. There are other priorities, especially Ukraine and migration, about which Starmer urgently wants a deal with Macron and about which Harris wants a deal with Starmer.
So surely in the grand scheme of things Casement Park is a small matter? More cash from cash flush Dublin and cash as a gesture of good will from Britain would help smooth relations.
On another grand scheme, you don’t suppose Harris will mention reunification? No, it’s not a priority of his, though it’s a constitutional imperative. Still, after eight dreadful years you have to start somewhere. Tús maith leath na hoibre.
