Posted By: January 23, 2019

RISH CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING

Distributed to Congress by Irish National Caucus

“No matter how wholeheartedly I supported the Good Friday Agreement, I ’ve been haunted by the thought: What if some British prime minister comes along after Tony Blair, God bless him, and reneges on the Agreement? And now, again, Belfast columnist Brian Feeney warns us that that is exactly what Prime Minister May is planning to do: ‘Thus for the last few years Britain has been unwinding the Good Friday Agreement because of the government’s reliance on the DUP. John Bruton, of all people, accused the British of ‘tearing up’ the GFA even though the Irish government changed its constitution by referendum to fulfill the requirements of the GFA. The British are willfully allowing the institutions of the GFA, including the British-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference, and the all-Ireland bodies, to atrophy.’ General de Gaulle would have said, ‘I told you so.’ “

—Fr. Sean McManus



Theresa May doesn’t have a reputation for flexibility and collaboration.

Brian Feeney. Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, January 23, 2019History has proved Charles de Gaulle right on all counts about British governments.In his memoirs, he wrote … “For England, (he preferred to call them the English) there is no alliance that would hold, no treaty respected, no truth which matters.” That was his conclusion after being tricked and traduced by the British throughout the last war, long before he became president of France.He was right to veto the UK’s entry to the EEC as it was in 1963 and again in 1967. In 1963 he said, ‘England isn’t a big deal anymore.’ De Gaulle correctly believed that Britain still clung to imperial delusions and preferred its ties to former colonies. He said, ‘The England of Kipling is dead.’ Leading figures in the Conservative party didn’t think so and, as De Gaulle predicted, sucked up to America as a way to masquerade as a world power. The UK wasn’t reconciled to being a medium-sized European power, and in the intervening decades we see quite clearly still hasn’t become reconciled to that role.When the British were finally admitted to the EEC in 1973, they joined with many reservations, political and psychological. Many British politicians continued to refer to ‘Europe’ because they never felt European or part of any European community. The British continually asked for special treatment as De Gaulle foresaw they would. They repeatedly asked for opt-outs which they received. Last March the prime minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel summed it up perfectly when he said: ‘They were in with a load of opt-outs. Now they are out, and want a load of opt-ins.’Back to De Gaulle’s original description. There was no EEC or EU treaty that Britain fully accepted. The same is true today. Four times Theresa May accepted the “ backstop,” starting in December 2017. Yet since then she has repeatedly whined and whinged to have what she agreed undone. She actually wrote a letter to Donald Tusk on March 19, 2018, committing to ‘a legally operative backstop solution’ in the Withdrawal Agreement. She then proceeded to send her ministers traipsing around the EU, or ‘Europe’ as she would call it, trying to get the “backstop” changed.Eventually, in the summer May managed to get the “backstop” expanded – to appease the DUP – from being Northern Ireland specific, to embrace the whole UK. Remember, that was her idea to which Michel Barnier and the EU Commission reluctantly acceded. Then she signed up to it in the final Withdrawal Agreement last November but immediately ratted on it in true, traditional British fashion just as David Davis ratted on the Joint Report of December 2017 within forty-eight hours.In essence, what all the thrashing about for the last week has been for is trying to find a way out of everything the British government has agreed in the past two years. It’s the same mindset that has dominated the UK’s relations with the EEC and EU for forty-five years. They want the EU to disregard its own rules and legal order to make a special case for the UK. The British government will only agree to a deal they have dictated and even then reserve the right to walk away from it if, some years later, they find they don’t like it. As Professor Brendan O’Leary told a conference on Brexit last summer, Britain is a fundamentally unreliable partner because ‘any parliament can unwind any treaty; it’s not binding in constitutional law.’Thus for the last few years, Britain has been unwinding the Good Friday Agreement because of the government’s reliance on the DUP. John Bruton, of all people, accused the British of ‘tearing up’ the GFA even though the Irish government changed its constitution by referendum to fulfill the requirements of the GFA. The British are wilfully allowing the institutions of the GFA, including the British-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference, and the all-Ireland bodies, to atrophy.Every time Theresa May says no deal is better than a bad deal it means she intends to jettison the Good Friday Agreement. Of course, you need to remember that only a British referendum matters.