Rejoice. Leo Varadkar – unpopular with the Conservatives, the DUP, unionists, loyalists and plenty at home – has made his best intervention on Brexit to date. Mistakes, he conceded, were made on both sides of the fence during the long and tedious negotiations over the backstop, the protocol and all else in between.
His admission wasn’t contrite – nor should it have been – but it was honest and it was correct.
“One thing I have said in the past is that when we designed the protocol, when it was originally negotiated, perhaps it was a little bit too strict ... So we are willing to show flexibility and to make compromises. We do want there to be an agreement,” he said.
Brexiteers have tried to maintain a cool-headed “we told you so” demeanour in reaction to the statement, but in truth they are rattled. They have long dismissed the Taoiseach as naive, foolish and a simple-minded patsy of the powers that be in Brussels. Varadkar’s offering of an olive branch instead of further red lines has caught them off guard.
Over seven years the entire Brexit saga has been reduced to a childish morality tale of heroes versus villains, victims versus perpetrators. Pick a side: either the United Kingdom is a casualty of the European Union’s profound intransigence, denied its rightful freedom by petty bureaucrats; or Ireland is a sacrificial lamb of a rogue state bulldozing a hard-won peace with little consideration for the rights of those who live in Northern Ireland or on the border.
Remarkably, both of these things can be true at the same time. But of course it serves Ireland’s immediate interests to cast all Brexiteers as swivel-eyed loons, intent on destroying not just their neighbour’s fragile constitutional arrangement but their own economy too. If the people on the other side of the table are nothing more than bad-faith actors then the government’s story can be one of fighting the good fight, rather than capitulating to malignant forces.
That dynamic, of course, operates in both directions. But this kind of sabre rattling is short-termism. Perhaps in his previous stint as Taoiseach such a route felt all too appealing. But negotiations are still at an impasse and Northern Ireland once again has no executive. Ditching the villains and victims narrative is an act of realpolitik plenty of Brexiteers never thought Varadkar was capable of. It is certainly an act of realpolitik many Brexiteers are incapable of themselves
Practically, Varadkar’s promise of more flexibility creates space for both sides at the negotiating table, encouraging those behind the protocol (not Varadkar, we shouldn’t forget) to meet in the middle. More importantly, it offers the DUP a ladder to climb down. A vow of similar flexibility has, as of yet, not been proffered by those holding the Northern Ireland Assembly to ransom, of course ... Nevertheless, Varadkar is right. At times the EU has been needlessly intransigent, perhaps the protocol is too strict, it is certainly the case that it alienates unionists whose values are no less important than anyone else’s.
The mood music emanating out of Dublin has at times been laced with Schadenfreude, pleased that the UK’s economic woes are deepened by its foolish decision to leave the EU trade bloc. And equally the UK has held Varadkar and Simon Coveney in contempt for the small crime of protecting their nation’s interests, for having the nerve to draw their own red lines, for not facilitating the project. And the British government has been uniquely hopeless in managing the practicalities, instead focusing on the political message that “Brexit is working”, rather than actually helping its citizens with the transition of leaving the single market. So yes, there have been mistakes of varying severity all round. No serious history is told through the lens of the correct and the incorrect, the good and the evil, the side of impenetrable reason and the side of delusional foolishness. As tempting as all of it may sound.
Brexit itself holds space for this ambiguity: it was not the expression of a homogenous vote but a complicated mix of motivations. And Britain asserting its spiritual distance from the EU was not in fact an aberration of the nation’s tendencies but a culmination of its long-held anxieties. Acknowledging this is an important step to reconciliation. And by eschewing the idea that Brexit was simply a bad idea, carried out by bad-faith actors who made nothing but error upon error, Varadkar has brought a solution to the quagmire closer.
It is still perfectly possible – reasonable, in fact – to see Brexit as all of those things, but that view keeps the impasse alive. It entrenches the awkward stasis in Northern Ireland. Whether any such maturity can be expected of the DUP or the British government is a secondary concern – good politicians lead by example. The way forward is still hazy and if there were an easy solution to the protocol it would have been implemented by now. But perhaps, finally, white smoke does not seem a distant fantasy.