European Army? Might as well ask for a unicorn whilst you’re at it.

The Times ScreenshotPreviously published in The Times Ireland edition in 2016.

Twitter lit up last week, as it is wont to do, over the news that Hungary and the Czech Republic have called for a European army. Sorry, when I say Twitter, I don’t mean the 80% of Twitter that knows what a Kardashian is, nor the 18% that knows what a Cardassian is, but the 0.2% that worries about stuff like European defence. And that’s being generous.

For the political nerd and certain dog-whistling newspapers of the hard right in Britain, a European Army is a cross between the Loch Ness monster, a yeti, and a credible explanation as to what the hell the TV series “Lost” was actually about. It’s elusive, fascinating, and guaranteed to stir up heated debate on all sides of the argument. It allows our now departing British friends to put on a quite spectacular display of political schizophrenia, going from “Vote Leave because the rest of Europe wants a European army” to “See! Now we have left we can’t veto that crowd creating a European army! We told you!”

In other words, something for pretty much every voice inside the head of your average UKIP member.

From the Irish perspective, we get to do the usual “Down with war, up with peace” thing whilst ignoring the fact that if we hid any further behind NATO we’d all be living off the coast of San Diego. Not to worry: the last time we liberated a beach it was in Wexford for Steven Spielberg. The rest of Europe has never regarded us as one of the “we stand with you” nations. We’re more of a John Hurt in “The Field” operation, stealing ham from a sandwich and then protesting that we didn’t do anything. We don’t conquer other people, we don’t defend them. Nothing to do with us.   

Which is fine, there’s something in the European army debate for everyone as long as you accept the fact that discussing “Lost” is more likely to lead to a satisfactory conclusion than a European army debate ever will.

The Hungarians and Czechs were responding to an initiative by Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative (the title refers to her status, by the way, not any state of narcotic substance use) to begin work on EU military structures. Now, if talks and initiatives about European defence actually counted as military capability, Europe would have the equivalent of a Death Star hovering over the Kremlin. But they don’t. The reality is that all Europe really does is talk about defence and design new logos for yet more defence bodies to talk about defence. But if a couple of thousand tonnes of Russian steel came lumbering over the Finnish or Estonian border, those European defence initiatives wouldn’t count for squat.

Well, maybe that is slightly unfair. The European Defence Agency does quietly work away on those technical things that matter, like research into drones and trying to get Europe some sort of coordinated air transport capability. But the actual shooting at Russians as they fight their way through the streets of Talinn? That’s NATO or to be honest, the Americans we’re relying on, which, whilst watching The Big Giant Loud Blonde Head running for the White House should really make us take this whole defence thing much more seriously.

The primary reason we won’t see a European army anytime soon is because nobody is really willing to die for Estonia, other than maybe Estonians and their near neighbours. Create and fund (there’s the tricky bit) a standalone volunteer European army, made up not of Irish or German soldiers but European soldiers who just happen to be Irish or German, and that might be a different story, but that isn’t going to happen any day soon. We can’t even get Europeans to agree on taxing companies we all say we want to tax.  

If you want to know why all this latest guff won’t lead to anything tangible, consider this:

There is currently in existence a detailed plan to create a European army.

It’s a very detailed plan which proposes the creation of a common European army, funded from a common budget.  It lists out how many interceptor fighters should be in each squadron. It permits the European Defence Forces to recruit in the member states. It allows for conscription of males between certain ages. It bars member states from recruiting for national forces except in very limited circumstances, mostly to do with defending overseas territories.

It is so detailed, in fact, that it even has a section on the tax arrangements of military canteens and restaurants.  

In short, it has all the things Sinn Fein, the Daily Mail and the alphabet left warned you about. As someone who supports a common European defence, I got giddy with excitement as I read it, and even more excited when I realised it had been agreed to by German, French, Italian, Dutch and Belgian ministers, who had even drafted a treaty to implement it.

I mean, a treaty! How more serious can you be?

Any day now, right?

The proposal was called the Pleven plan, and was announced in 1952, finally being rejected by the French National Assembly in 1954. Sixty two years ago.  

European Army? Yeah, right.

The Jupiter Decision: A political short story about nuclear war in Europe.

FRANCE-POLITICS-DEFENCEThe Airbus A380 started moving as soon as the door was closed, before the cars in the motorcade even had time to get fully clear of the massive thrust of the engines. The pilot, a colonel in the French air force, slammed the engines into full throttle to execute what was called a hard take-off, the plane getting into the air quickly and immediately into a sharp incline to gain as much height as possible. A number of Elysee officials who had been busy securing the president of the French Republic before getting back to their seats were knocked off their feet by the angle, both being grabbed by burly bodyguards and pulled into seats as the plane reached its cruising height.

The military cabin crew, briefed as to the situation, had immediately lowered all the blinds on the windows, so that the passengers on-board could not see the military airbase and Paris speed away into the distance.

It actually meant they would not be blinded by the detonation of a nuclear warhead over the French capital as was one possibility they were expecting at this very moment. Nor could they see the four heavily fuelled and armed Rafale fighters escorting the plane on its pre-planned flight plan, designed to avoid major urban areas and military targets (for spotting purposes and also because they were likely nuclear targets) and take the plane out over the Atlantic.

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What if….the United States left NATO?

(Posted Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022)

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s a common trope of the political thriller was a devious plot by the KGB to break up the western alliance, normally through the dismantling of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). In Alfred Coppel’s “The Hastings Conspiracy”, for example, a plot involved the KGB revealing to the leftwing British government that there existed a secret US plan to invade the UK (landing at Hastings, in case you’re interested), Colin Forbes’ “The Stone Leopard” involved a group of French, British and German agents racing to stop Moscow putting a Soviet agent into the Elysee Palace and pulling French forces out of Germany ahead of a Soviet invasion through the Fulda Gap. Chris Mullin’s “A Very British Coup” hinged on a plot by the CIA to stop Jeremy Corbyn Harry Perkins pulling Britain out of NATO. Both “The Fourth Protocol” and, eh, “Octopussy” had key plot points hinging on something very similar.

There were some books that speculated at a US withdrawal back into isolation, but relatively few: it was taken as read that the US was the anchor of western defence both out of value belief and in its own naked self-interest.

Then Donald Trump was elected President, and the party of Ronald Reagan and Eisenhower became the party of Lindbergh. Under Trump it was mostly mouth, a man who was too chaotic to pursue a policy of withdrawal even if he really believed it, which probably depended as much as what day it was as any intellectual conviction. But Trump aside, isolationism, fueled by Fox News charlatans who see any sort of engagement with liberal elements abroad as grounds to whip up hysteria have seriously undermined American commitment to NATO, and the idea of the US withdrawal, whilst still unlikely, is no longer ludicrous. What if it happened…

The near future. The new administration had moved much faster than anyone had expected, given the relative closeness of the election result. This was primarily at the hands of a bevy of new National Security Council appointees who would never had seen the inside of the building under the Bush, Reagan or indeed any previous post-war administration. These were young men who had been born in the 80s and 90s and even later and were more familiar with The Turner Diaries and Ayn Rand and sarcastic put downs on cable news shows than strategic thinking. Withdrawal from NATO was more, to them, about sticking it to foreigners, effete socialist Europeans who had lived off the backs of hard working Joe Sixpack for decades. America didn’t need alliances. America was strong. And any way: China was the enemy that needed to be faced down and Europe was of little or any use in that regard.

In Europe, as ever, surprise was the first call of the day. Yes, the new president had been very clear about his intentions, but no one is capable of self-delusion as Europeans are. Even watching the president announce that, whilst Congress debated withdrawal, he was signing an executive order to pull out US forces over six months and disavow any US commitment to defend any NATO country. He signed the document live on air and held it up to the camera, his massive signature covering half the page. He liked signing pieces of paper on camera.

The news that the US was leaving NATO triggered the European response to everything: a summit in Brussels, attended by the remainder of NATO. To say it was chaotic was an understatement. The Canadians earnestly stated their commitment to NATO which was received with the grateful eyes of a mortgage defaulting parent being offered a child’s piggy-bank. The Turks glowered at everyone. The French and the Germans immediately flew to Moscow. The British looked pained and paralyzed and announced a defence pact with New Zealand. The Hungarians wrote down everything everybody said. In Russian.

The Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians had their own meeting, with the Finns and Swedes quietly sitting in. The Poles revealed a secret, to gasps.

The moment the last US plane lifted off, that very moment, Russian troops ploughed across the border and annexed another chunk of Ukraine. The Ukrainians, with limited support from the British, Poles and Baltic states, put up a noble, robust and doomed defence, surrendering after three weeks of vicious fighting. The EU made a very robust speech at the UN.

A new summit attempted to confront the reality: that for the first time in over 75 years, European nations were now solely responsible for their own defence. There was no Deus Ex America to save them from the Russians.

As with so many challenges facing Europe, the problem was not finding the right or even credible solution. A small group of nations proposed the creation of a Combined European Defence Force, putting into physical existence the reality that Europe was both big enough and wealthy enough to defend itself from almost any threat, if it had the will.

As ever, it was the will that was the problem for Europe. The new Le Pen government in France was only remaining in NATO, critics said, to wreck NATO from the inside, and was openly hostile to contributing to the defence of the Baltic states. Germany’s political system was dominated by Russian penetration and overly optimistic free traders concerned only really with German exports. The British were divided between a pro-Russian left and an anti-European right that couldn’t really believe the US had left, and openly discussed some sort of merger with the US and Canada to guffaws from even their ideological allies in the new administration in Washington.

Having said that, neither France nor Germany was dumb enough not to recognise that US withdrawal also presented a huge commercial opportunity. A European Army in whatever form it took would need to purchase fighters, drones, tanks and all the high tech infrastructure needed to operate them effectively. The problem was that those nations genuinely concerned for their safety, within striking distance of the Russian border, were out of patience. As they looked at the tent cities holding refugees from Ukraine dotted throughout their countries, they saw the threat for real, and decided that their foot-dragging neighbours, whilst free to join, would not be permitted to hold them back.

The Treaty of Warsaw, creating a European Defence Community, was signed by Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Norway, Finland and Sweden. A request by Hungary to join was humiliatingly rejected as long as FIDESZ remained in office, and a robust method to expel rogue members was put in place. Unlike previous aspirational political compacts, the treaty clearly outlined what forces from each nation would be transferred to a combined Continental European Defence Command (CEDC) under a Supreme Commander, European Forces (SCEUR). The treaty dealt with wavering nations by formally transferring command of the assigned units for a fixed two year period with a 12 month period required for a nation to regain command early. A respected Polish general was appointed on the same day, with a Finnish deputy. The treaty also committed CEDC to purchasing specific numbers of fighters, tanks and other equipment and to raising a volunteer force in addition to existing transferred national troops by specific dates. Members that failed to reach their targets would be suspended from voting and possibly expelled. Finally, CEDC agreed to raise a €100 billion bond to fund the new force, with the money earmarked to be spend primarily in the member nations unless the equipment was unavailable. This particular clause caused ructions in the United States, where the new administration discovered that, having stepped away from Europe, it had far less leverage on getting its share of European defence procurement. Anti-NATO Republicans were shocked to see the big defence firms suddenly develop an interest in Democratic congressional candidates.

The response in Berlin and Paris was different. Le Pen flew into a rage on discovering, a week later, that the wily Swedish prime minister had secured British membership of the organisation by agreeing to English being the official working language, a proposal that had few objectors. He also agreed that the next supreme commander of the CEDC would be British. In return, the British contributed both physically and financially.  The French president found herself being lambasted in the National Assembly for allowing France be outmanouvered, especially given that huge defence contracts were about to be issued and France, having refused to join, was not eligible to seek them. In the Bundestag, a different state of affairs reigned, where those in the German parliament who had always supported a European army were now demanding of the government why Germany was not joining it? Again, German arms manufacturers were asking the same questions their French counterparts were: why was Germany not in line for its share?

The French government had to settle for an association with the CEDC where France could bid for contracts in return for a financial contribution to the organisation, as the Baltic states vetoed France joining as long as Le Pen was president because “we believe her” about not defending them. It was humiliating, so much so that her two-term centrist predecessor returned from his honeymoon to announce that he had changed his mind and would seek a third term on the pledge of France committing to the CEDC fully from day one. Looking fit and tanned in a crisp white open-necked shirt as he strolled through Charles De Gaulle holding hands with his beautiful new wife, he told the gathered media that it was obscene that Le Pen had created a situation where “Les Rosbifs” were taking a greater role in Europe’s defence than the republic. “An attack on Finland, an attack on Estonia is an attack on France!” he declared.

The German government agreed to the terms quietly and it went through the Bundestag with only the extremes of left and right objecting. The German Constitution was amended to permit the transfer of command of a section of the Bundesweher and Luftwaffe to SCEUR. Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands quickly joined. The Italian parliament erupted into a blazing row nominally over the European Defence Community treaty but in reality over a string of political corruption prosecutions. The Italian president and former ECB president rang the young Polish President to reassure her that despite the political drama, if Russia invades, “Italy will not be found wanting.” Ireland called for the United Nations to do something.

In Moscow, the aging Putin, seeing the lay of the land, decided to mobilize quickly, ordering a build up on the Estonian border before the CEDC could be organised. When his generals revealed that the actual ability of European forces was now that they could inflict serious damage on Russia’s forces, probably not enough to stop them but enough to turn the war into a long-running conflict that Russia could not afford, Putin let it be known that Russia would consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons if European forces did not capitulate quickly. He had never really believed in the concept of the NATO nuclear umbrella for one simple reason: the nations that needed it most had no nuclear weapons of their own, and Paris, London and Washington were simply not going to invite retaliation on their own soil despite all the bluster.

That night, the Polish president, accompanied by the Baltic and Finnish presidents put out an address in English. She announced that, on hearing the Russian threat to detonate tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, the five countries had been working on a Polish-led nuclear weapons programme, and that they had the ability to respond with short-range weapons in response to any Russian first use.

“We cannot destroy Russia,” she declared. “But we can respond in Kaliningrad, Belarus, and even in a city President Putin holds dear, so let the president understand us very clearly. We will never use nuclear weapons first. But we will respond in kind. We will, after this broadcast, communicate to you the size and yield of these weapons, and you will realise they can be carried by a single fighter, a drone, a fishing boat, a team of special forces with huskies over a border or even on the back of a truck sitting in St. Petersburg traffic. If we, the leaders of our respective countries die in a first strike, the protocol is in place to retaliate. Do not test us on this, Mr President.”

To the surprise of even itself, Brexit has been a success primarily for the European Union.

I never believed that Brexit would be an absolute catastrophe for the United Kingdom. The UK is a significant mid-sized military, economic and cultural power, and was more than capable of making its own way in the world outside the European Union. For me, the big lie at the heart of the Brexit campaign, was the false promise that Britain would gain hugely from exiting the European Union.

This is proven to have been true, Brexit has not delivered any huge benefit or bonus to the British people. It’s not, of course, true to say that nobody has gained from Brexit. Boris Johnson, someone who ironically did not really believe that that Britain should be outside the European Union, has personally benefited very substantially from Brexit. Having chosen the right article to submit before the referendum, and chosen a side in the referendum, that he believed would benefit his ultimate ambition of becoming Prime Minister, Boris’ judgment had proven right. His initial plan to ensure that even if it was defeated, which I genuinely believe he expected, that he would then be able to go to the very Brexit-friendly Tory party membership and submit himself as their candidate for the party leadership, even if Britain had remained within the European Union.

Having said that, he did go onto achieve his aim of becoming Prime Minister, and also very substantially increasing his personal wealth. Indeed, one of the reasons he recently resigned a seat in the House of Commons was to no longer have to publicly declare the vast sums of money he was receiving for writing columns, giving speeches, and writing books, a huge increase of income, which has recently allowed him to purchase a new home in Cheshire, for the sum of 3.8m pounds. 

Boris certainly benefited from it. The other major party to gain from Brexit, much to everybody’s surprise, is of course the European Union itself. There was genuine sadness in the European Union when Britain decided to depart the union, as Britain had been an important player within the EU and on balance a force for good and positive contributions.

Unforeseen by both Britain and the EU was the benefit to the union of Britain no longer being a member. The various points made by the remain campaign, that the rules and regulations of European Union membership that applied to Britain, the so-called “red tape” of much Brexiteer ballyhoo, were not as much a product of Britain’s membership of the EU as the product of life in a modern industrialized nation.

The reality is that the British public, alongside the public of any modern European nation, expect their government to regulate everything from the workplace to what appears on your dinner plate, and those regulations were, for the most part going to remain in one form of another, regardless of whether Britain was inside or outside Europe.

What was not truly appreciated at the time was the fact Europe is now benefiting from the bonus of Britain remaining within huge economic and regulatory gravity of the EU whilst having surrendered the British seat at the table, which draws up those regulations and rules.

Britain is now a rule, taker, not a rule maker, effectively a nominally sovereign dominion state of the EU. This is something that Europe is quite happy with, and can very easily live with. One only has to look at the Windsor protocol, and the fact that the EU has created internal border between Northern Ireland, and the rest of Britain, or the fact that the European Union is now providing Frontex border force officials in Gibraltar, once a literal Symbol of British sovereignty, shows that the consequences Brexit for the most part being beneficial to the European Union to a greater degree they have been to the United Kingdom.

What was supposed to have been a campaign of Taking Back Control has in Europe’s case essentially involved keeping control, and that is a situation that Europe is very comfortable with, thank you very much.

Should Jacinda Ardern administer Gaza?

The two-state solution is dead. It isn’t going to happen, because Israel does not trust an independent Palestinian state to not permit itself be used as a base to launch attacks on Israel.

Secondly, as long as Israel has the continued support of the United States, Israel can ignore the rest of the world. No nation of comparable military capability is willing to go toe to toe with Israel with the same willingness Israel is to use its very considerable military force.

Netanyahu, the man who has almost single-handedly destroyed Israel’s moral standing in the world (and not traded it for safety, as the Oct 7 atrocity proved) is quite happy to keep Gaza as an Israeli Bantustan. He’s also happy to encourage even more extreme proposals from the Israeli far right who form part of his governing coalition, if only to make his current policy sound more moderate. There’s no doubt that Netanyahu is probably the most skilled political operative to have ever held the office of Prime Minister of Israel, and keeping the war going keeps him in office. This operation is more about saving his political hide then it is about Israeli security. Netanyahu failed on Oct 7. But he is still in power.

The solution of the far-left in the west, the abolition of Israel, isn’t going to happen, because 175 F16s beats a UN general assembly resolution Every Single Time. From The River To the Sea my arse.

That doesn’t mean that those of us in the west who recognise Israel’s right to defend itself, despise Hamas and yet watch Israel killing civilians with horror should just give up in despair. Is there a third option?

What if someone else ran Gaza? Not Israel, and not Gaza. Some sort of international protectorate that took responsibility for the day to day running of the state, from clean water to preventing it being used to fire rockets at Israel? An administration that builds a proper port for Gaza that allows it to participate in the world, whilst insuring it’s not used to smuggle weapons in.

The Israelis would be very sceptical, and it would require a robust military presence capable of militarily supressing Hamas, Islamic Jihad and any one else who tried to use the state as a terrorist base. US troops would not be acceptable. But what about European? Irish, Danish, Norwegian, French (probably not German) and others. It would need a UN administrator to run it. Jacinda Ardern seems to have time on her hands?

It would also need the consent of the actual people of Gaza in a plebiscite, one which Hamas would almost certainly try to disrupt. Maybe they’d vote no, for the status quo of Israel bombing them. Perhaps: of maybe they’d be willing to a) have someone liberate them from Hamas who doesn’t have settlement plans, and b) make it less likely they’ll be bombed by Israelis if it means hitting French troops, France being one of those countries that can shoot down Israeli planes. And after 10-15 years of relative peace, who knows what could be possible?

Is such a proposal viable? I have no idea. How would the west feel if China happily volunteered 30,000 troops for the mission (although the looks on the faces of the left as Chinese troops took on Hamas would be one for the ages)? But I do know the two-state solution is not coming in my lifetime.

 

E-Day: The British EU Referendum May 2013.

This was originally written in October 2009, when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister.

Dateline: London, United Kingdom, May 2013.

Six months ago, the embattled British Conservative prime minister David Cameron announced plans for a plebiscite on membership of the European Union. This followed foriegn secretary William Hague’s informing of the House of Commons that it was impossible to negotiate a new treaty to transform the EU from a political union into a single market. Hague had spent the previous year in negotiations with other EU member states, and whilst the other member states had been willing to make minor concessions in line with Mr Cameron’s famous “Never Again” speech of November 2009, including the restoration of the British opt-out of the European Social Chapter negotiated by the Major government, Hague conceded that there was little will in the rest of Europe to engage in the radical dismantling of the union that hardline Tory MPs were demanding. Following the marathon process that was the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, there was no appetite for yet another treaty, and as one leader had pointed out to the British minister, “There is no guarantee that European voters would vote to strip themselves of the rights that the previous treaties had conferred upon them.” In fact, Hague had to inform his parliamentary party of new Socialist French President Francois Hollande’s opinion that if there was to be any new treaty, it would be to advance political union, not move it backwards.

This in turn caused a crisis within the Conservative Party, jeopardising the government’s majority. Unlike the previous time in government, the Conservative parliamentary party had few pro-Europeans left in it, and was instead dominated by members who either barely tolerated the EU or were openly hostile towards it. On top of that, the Tory grassroots, who were able to influence their party  through the web to a degree unseen in other parties, vented their anger over Hague’s failure, despite the fact that he had pretty much delivered what he and Cameron had promised before the 2010 general election.  Cameron and Hague were slated as “sellouts” for not bringing back a pure free trade area, and it wasn’t difficult to find over 80 Conservative MPs, terrified by their rabidly eurosceptic constituency associations,  to sign a letter demanding that, in light of the failure to renegotiate better terms, the matter could not be let rest there, and the British people must be given an opportunity to decide the issue. Facing a potential vote of confidence over the EU from the newly reinvigorated Labour Party led by former foreign secretary David Milliband, the prime minister felt he had no choice other than to pledge a referendum on continued membership of the EU.

The irony was that both Cameron and Hague had been elected leaders of their party partially on their appeal as solid eurosceptics. Yet they now had a choice: Opinion polls said that 65% of British voters disapproved of British membership of the EU. But both also knew that although Britain could survive outside the EU, it would be an action which would reduce the right of Britain to participate in the global decision-making process. The world was shaped by the EU, US, Russia, India, Japan and China, a point made very clear to them by the newly elected President Romney. In addition, the chief executives of major British exporters, in meetings with the prime minister, chancellor of the exchequer, industry secretary and foriegnsecretary, were absolutely adamant. Their exports will be bound by EU regulations regardless of British membership, and it was therefore vital that their own government be inside the union to help shape those regulations. Cameron and Hague, to much anger within their own party,  announced that they would be advocating a “Yes to Remain” vote in the referendum. The prime minister nevertheless accepted that no Tory MP would be bound to campaign for either a Yes or No vote, but could vote with their own conscience. In truth, he knew that to do otherwise would be to break up the Tory party.

Three months before polling day, It was taken as a statement of conventional fact that the British people would vote to leave the EU. But once the campaign started, and the television media moved to ensure balance in the debate, it became very apparent that there was a problem, as the leaders of the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrat, SNP, Green Party and Plaid Cymru all advocated a Yes vote. This forced the broadcasters to give pole position to UKIP’s Nigel Farage and the BNP’s Nick Griffin as defacto leaders of the No side. Eurosceptic Tory and Labour MPsprotested, but as their parties were officially represented on the Yes side, they found themselves being allocated into third place slots behind UKIP and the BNP. Within a month, the No vote had dropped to 57%.

One of the curious features of the campaign was that the referendum was the first occasion where the British public actually started to receive mainstream information about the EU and how it worked. It certainly didn’t make the voters love the EU, but it did make them fear it less, and that began to be reflected in the polls.

Within the media, a subtle campaign was also beginning to have an effect. Major British companies, including major supermarket chains, sat down with the main newspapers, and put it to them bluntly. It was all well and good playing the eurosceptic game and bashing Johnny Foriegner to sell newspapers, but this was too important. They needed a British voice in Brussels and were willing to put their advertising budgets where their mouths were. Rupert Murdoch, pragmatic to the last, looked across the table at men as wealthy as he was, men who unlike politicians, weren’t afraid to play hardball, and had hundreds of millions in advertising revenue on the table. Stunned eurosceptics nearly choked on their cornflakes to discover The Sun, and a number of other papers, admit that whilst the EU was flawed, Britain had to fight her corner at the table, and therefore should vote Yes.

With three weeks to go, the Yes campaign unveiled all of Britain’s former prime ministers bar one advocating a Yes vote at a press conference. It was a powerful image. Although a statement was issued in the name of Mrs Thatcher advocating a No vote, the manner in which it was issued, and the refusal of the No campaign to permit journalists interview her became a story in its own right. Some pro-European Tories questioned as to whether the elderly former leader was been taken advantage of by the No side. The fact that she did not appear in public during the campaign almost certainly negated her endorsement of the No side.

In the final week of the campaign, the No vote was leading by a mere 4%, as the No sidestruggled to focus its message. Whereas the Yes sidehad a solid group of eminent ministers and former ministers all advocating the same message, the No side struggled to maintain consistancy. One particular memorable edition of Question Time, where Arthur Scargill and Norman Tebbit both advocated a No vote for differing reasons, and then engaged in a furious on-air argument as all the Yes representatives remained on message, tended to highlight the challenges.

A similar event featuring Tony Benn and Nick Griffin did not add clarity. Whilst pro-No Tory cabinet ministers were permitted to campaign for a No vote, many of them were unwilling to debate in public against the top three cabinet officers, and so the No campaign tended to be dominated by extremists. A UKIP MEP,  responding to a call by the Irish government to Irish voters in the UK to vote Yes, was quoted as saying that “What can we expect from the land of peasants, priests and pixies?” The remark did little to boost the No vote amongst Britain’s largest minority group.

Polling day surprised the pundits with a turnout of only 53%, confirming a suspicion amongst some that most British people were neither pro nor anti EU, but just did not really give a toss. Scotland voted 59% Yes, Northern Ireland split along broadly sectarian lines, with the formerly eurosceptic Sinn Fein uneasily advocating a Yes vote. In England, the south west voted No by 65%, a response to bitterness over the common fisheries policy, but right throughout the night, the Yes and No sides hopscotched over each other until the votes from middle class parts of London started to come in large numbers, dragging the Yes votes over the top to a modest 51.6% Yes 48.4% No conclusion.

The reaction in Yes campaign headquarters was ecstatic, with Lib Dem and Labour campaigners cheering. The Tories, who had refused to participate in the unified Yes campaign for fear of being photographed near EU flags, looked mildly embarressed at the result.

Over at the No campaign, a punch-up broke out between BNP and Respect members, with UKIP representatives darkly suggesting that the vote had been somehow rigged. A young eurosceptic Tory attempted to set fire to an EU flag, but accidentally ignited a union jack he was holding instead, and was beaten by a group of BNP activists.  Some Tories suggested that, given the tightness of the result, that it would not be unreasonable to exercise “the Irish option” and began to call for a second referendum, and that they would begin advocating such a move in the parliamentary party.

At his desk in Downing Street, David Cameron sighed, sat down, and started highlighting passages from John Major’s autobiography.

A unionist leader with guts would call Dublin’s bluff.

Imagine a chap wanted to buy your house. He REALLY wanted to buy it. And you don’t want to sell it. But he put together an offer and asked you to at least read the offer.

You’d read it, if anything out of curiosity to see what value he put on your house. It doesn’t mean you’ve committed to selling the house nor that you like your house less.

Watching the DUP in the north of Ireland go round and round in circles over the border protocol reminds me of how consistently the timid leadership of unionism has weakened unionism, and I write this as a believer in a United Ireland.

The late David Trimble did show courage, and it got him a dismantled IRA, changes to articles two and three and a recognition BY THE IRA that the constitutional status of Northern Ireland could not change without a majority vote. All the while Big Ian played it safe and then two-facedly took up all the positions he had destroyed Trimble for.

History will remember Trimble (and Hume) better than it remembers Big Ian the freeloader.

What unionism needs now is a leader that calls Dublin (and nationalism)’s bluff. A leader who says “Look: I want to remain in the union. But show me what’s on offer anyway.”

Would he/she really care about what’s on offer? Beyond pure curiosity, probably not. But thinking strategically, imagine the effect on nationalist politics, north and south, if a DUP leader said he’d like to see the details. What would a United Ireland actually look like?

It would cause bedlam in the south because very little public debate has actually gone into the nuts and bolts. Yes, there’s been much symposia and meetings about how wonderful a United Ireland will be, but where is the actual text of a United Ireland constitution?

If your answer to that is to just point at Bunreacht na hEireann, fair enough. That’s as clear a message to the potential British Minority in Ireland as any. You’ll take what you’re given and know your place. The Downton Abbey Option, to give it a name. And it won’t just be unionists in the north who will not be thrilled at the dismissiveness of that.

But if the south got into a real debate about a South African approach to a new country, we’d be quickly bogged down in the fact that almost no nationalist wants to make the first concession in front of other nationalists and be called a West Brit sellout. If Gutsy Unionist said he/she would only consider a draft document if it was endorsed by two thirds of the Dail, the ball would be very firmly in our court and stay there it would as we hopped it off each other.

Gutsy unionist leader can then go back to Belfast as Mr/Miss Reasonable.

There’s one other thing a strategic thinking unionist leader will know: the moment a border poll passes, the desire for compromise in the south will evaporate. Foolishly, because a unionist minority dragged into the republic against its majority will is not going to be a happy minority, and if there’s one thing this island knows something about, it’s how unhappy minorities respond. But it’ll still happen in the short term, nationalists greeting a border poll win, no matter how narrow, as a First Past the Post Winner Takes All result. Whereas if he/she can come out of Dublin with a draft compromise that at least has some appeal to unionists, that’s something to be put away for the future just in case.

In short, a unionist leader wanting to discuss THE DETAILS of a United Ireland will at best cause chaos in nationalist circles and at worst a document written by nationalists still trying to woo as opposed to having already won a border poll.

But even discussing it will weaken the union, some unionists say. How? By making some unionists think that they might be better off in a United Ireland? If that’s unionism’s big sell it is in serious trouble.

What’s to lose? The ultimate defemce of the union is a border poll, and if that’s lost then it’s lost because a majority of NI voters decide that. But it is also a sturdy and secure handbrake.

You don’t want to sell your house. But if the guy offered you ten million and says the offer stands forever, you’d be absolutely mad not to keep his phone number.

Will the DUP get such a leader? Well, they thought Brexit would strengthen the union, so make of that what you will.

 

The immigration speech I’d like to hear a Taoiseach give.

The full transcript of Leo Varadkar’s St. Patrick’s Day address to the ...“Good evening.

I’m speaking to you on the subject of immigration tonight because I wish to give you a better understanding as to the government’s thinking on the issue.

Let me start by outlining the key issues the government has to consider.

The reality is that a certain amount of controlled immigration is necessary for a modern industrialised country to provide additional workers and skills. We have a labour shortage in this country and need additional people to help create the national wealth which, through taxation, funds our social welfare system, health services and old age pensions.

It’s also true that many Irish people, myself included, believe that our history obliges us to show as much compassion as we can to others fleeing tyranny, war and other hardship.

Having said that, a country only has a limited amount of resources, in terms of money, housing spaces and other public services and so has to balance these competing needs.

A country also has a sovereign right to decide who enters it and what values they must respect. You do not have a right to go to a foreign country and start demanding that they must put their values second.

The wars in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere have made inward migration a major issue not just for Ireland but the whole of Europe. Indeed, in some cases refugees have been weaponised by countries seeking to weaken the European Union.

It is within that context that the government will seek to pursue the following policies.

First, we will set an annual limit on how many asylum seekers and refugees we will accept every year, with a guarantee that people accepted under limit will receive decent accommodation, care, education and integration in dedicated and purpose-built reception centres.

Those accommodated in these centres will be screened to verify who they are and that they pose no risk to the community at large.

Anyone found to have destroyed documentation prior to seeking asylum will be removed immediately.

Secondly, the centres will also operate as training and education centres to identify and teach skills to permit our new arrivals to work and play their part creating wealth and paying taxes in our country.

Secondly, we must recognise that mass migration is a European-wide problem, and must be addressed at a European level too. Our nearest neighbour, in its attempt to seize control of its own borders outside a European framework, has resulted in it ceding control of its southern border to the French interior minister. I do not propose we join that experiment.

Instead, Ireland will support and contribute towards efforts to create secure EU-run safezones outside the European continent to act as the first point of contact for those seeking to enter Europe.

Such a safezone could also act as a transit point for those individuals who have been removed from member states. I do not propose that these will be mass refugee camps where people will be abandoned, but functioning communities under European control where legal migration into Europe, having passed through a European cultural integration and screening programme may be permitted.

At the heart of such a programme is the core belief that it is Europeans who will decide who comes to live among us.

Finally, let me say that one of the reasons I decided to speak with you directly on this issue is because of the rise, both here and on the mainland, of dangerous far-right elements laced with fascist and neo-nazi tendencies, who see those of different religion, skin colour, ethnic group or other characteristics as not welcome in our society. Indeed, many of these elements are funded or supported by hostile foreign powers.

Let me be clear: I regard such groups as a clear and present danger to our republic and Irish republicanism itself, and will be bringing forth legislation to create a national security intelligence organisation to identify all such threats, foreign and domestic, to our democracy, and with the power and resources to act accordingly in defence of Irish democracy.

I understand that these are controversial proposals which will cause much debate in the country, as they should. I also accept that there are those in the country who will wish to propose alternatives, and that, my fellow Irishmen and women, are what elections are for.

Good night”.

 

Ireland goes to war? A hypothetical scenario.

NATO tanksOriginally written in 2015.

1st December 2017: Russian forces enter Estonia, Finland and Poland, taking NATO by surprise. Resistance in all three countries is stiff, and US, UK, French, German and Italian aircraft all provide air support.

In the Dail, the Irish government condemns the invasion. Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein call for the United Nations “to act”. They are not specific on detail.

2nd December: it is now clear that a full Russian invasion is underway. Media briefings in Moscow clarify that the purpose of the “pre-emptive defensive action” is to secure the Baltic states, Poland and Finland as neutral states outside of NATO. President Putin goes on TV to explain the action, and, speaking in fluent German, pledges that only those countries are combat areas, and that Russian forces will not invade other European countries.

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Thank God for the Americans.

“Americans! They’re all thick!” is a common remark in Irish circles after the latest eye-rolling piece of news that comes from stateside. It’s not unique to the Irish either: the rest of the world has no shortage of superior notions on hearing the latest from President Trump or the millions of gun-toting paranoiacs who voted for him. It’s very easy to feel smarter than the Average American.

And yet: here’s the thing. The United States is not just another country. It is a country so powerful that it can supply Ukraine with enough weapons to paralyse its former superpower rival whilst utilising a mere 5% of its defence budget. And not just any old weapons either. Advanced missile systems that allow a single infantryman to destroy a Russian tank worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. HIMARS missile systems which allow Ukraine to devastate Russian forces. US satellites that provide incredibly accurate information on enemy forces to Ukraine. Sure, the UK and France and Germany are contributing in their own ways, but the reality is this: Ukraine is not defeated because the United States stepped in and equipped a brave but shockingly underequipped Ukrainian army with the arsenal of democracy. The US saved Ukraine.

Not only that, but the US also maintains a vast nuclear arsenal and air force and 12 aircraft carriers where the nearest rival has two. Could it suddenly fight China if it had to? Probably. It would almost certainly require the US economy to shift from its current consumer footing to a military manufacturing mode, but it could do that, and what’s more, that’s when, the US really shines.

People forget what defeated both Nazism and the Empire of Japan. Yes, British and especially Russian blood sacrifice, but what did it was the incomprehensible heft of sheer American economic power. It was American steel and Studebaker trucks that kept the Soviets in the fight.

If a giant asteroid was detected to be on an impact course with Earth, who would we all turn to? Beijing? Brussels? London? No. Even if the EU got 20 year notice that a giant meteorite was going to destroy, say, Poland, we’d still not get our act together. Once again, we’d assume that only one country would have the mix of resources, know-how and sheer willpower to actually save humanity. And after they did it, we’d bitch about their arrogance and lack of consultation.

Can we rely on them forever? Probably not. The US feels like it is turning in on itself, and not just on its right. If there was, say, an Ocasio-Cortez led liberal landslide, there’d be a huge focus on building a massively expanded (and expensive) US welfare state with an American NHS at its core.

As if that is depressing enough, just remember that there is only one country with a sniff at matching US power, and it is a brutal one party dictatorship that uses tanks against its own people.

As for Europe: we can’t even agree on a single currency.