Sir, – John Wilson Foster blames the Irish Government and specifically the Taoiseach regarding the present post-Brexit “vexatious relationship between Ireland and Great Britain” (October 27th).
This he says is despite what he cites as “thousands of Irish living and working happily in Britain” as a “testimony” to a “relationship of economic and cultural inextricability”. He also advocates a shared islands unit.
He ignores the contribution of Brexit and the consequent damage to the Belfast Agreement to that vexatious relationship.
Before Brexiteers voted to declare economic war on the rest of Europe and specifically on this former colony and tear up the Belfast Agreement we had a relationship of cultural and economic inextricability.
Continental Europe, from Finland to Portugal and from Ireland to Cyprus was co-operating within the structure of the EU.
On these islands the Belfast Agreement had drawn a line under centuries of colonial rule and the inextricable relationship was a shared islands affair and was working fine.
Blaming the Irish for the present vexatious relationship ignores the contribution of the Brexiteers in Great Britain to dismantling the EU and tearing up an international agreement drawing a line under centuries of colonial rule on these islands.
John Wilson Foster should take a wider view as to the causes of the present vexatious relationship between the UK and this country if we are to get back to the pre-Brexit harmonious situation. – Yours, etc,
A LEAVY,
Dublin 13.