Patrick Roche: The lack of commitment to the Union marks the death of British conservatism

Varadkar in effect said that the Windsor Framework is a done deal that will ‘not be reopened’ (Evening Standard, April 20). But at the same time he claimed that ‘Brexit will never just be done’. This means that he anticipates future negotiations between the UK and the EU on the implementation of the 2019 UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) to avoid any adverse effect of the implementation on the Republic’s export trade with Great Britain. The political and economic logic of his position is clear. The Republic’s government is indifferent to the adverse economic impact of the protocol on the Northern Ireland economy essentially involving the costly disruption of Northern Ireland’s supply chains with Great Britain.

This cost will not be substantially alleviated by the Windsor Framework. Leading Northern Ireland hauliers operating at the ‘coal face’ of Northern Ireland’s supply chains with Great Britain have stated that the Windsor Framework ‘reinforces the Irish Sea border’ (News Letter, March 24) and a Logistics UK opinion poll ‘suggests that well over half of Great Britain shipping businesses do not intend to re-establish a trading relationship with Northern Ireland’ (News Letter, April 8). The implementation of the Protocol/ Windsor Framework will have a devastating impact on Northern Ireland trade with Great Britain. The UK government is equally indifferent. The Secretary of State, Heaton-Harris, announced on March 22 that the Windsor Framework was a done deal that would not be ‘renegotiated’ (Irish News, March 23).

Current UK government policy is that the sale of new conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans will be banned in the UK from 2030. But the operation of the TCA ‘rules of origin’ could mean that electric cars produced in the UK and sold to the EU would be subject to EU tariffs. The combination of the 2030 ban and the imposition of EU tariffs on electric cars manufactured in the UK would devastate the UK car industry which currently employs about 800,000 people.

Dr Esmond Birnie recently (News Letter, May 19) pointed out that the UK government ‘is talking with the European Commission about how this situation could be resolved’ which would involve renegotiation of the terms of the TCA despite their refusal of any further negotiation of the Protocol/Windsor Framework.

Why the indifference to the economic costs of the Protocol/Windsor Framework for Northern Ireland on the part of both the British government and the government of the Republic? The answer is quite simple. The extent of the Conservative commitment to the integrity of Northern Ireland’s place within the Union was stated with indisputable clarity in the 1993 Downing Street Declaration: the British government has ‘no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland’. The 1998 Belfast Agreement provided for ‘Irish unity’ on the basis of a minimal possible majority of ‘50% plus 1.0’ vote in a border poll and in the Brexit negotiations Northern Ireland was in effect treated as a disposable part of the Union.

The Varadkar indifference to the deeply adverse impact of the Protocol/Windsor Framework on the Northern Ireland economy is typical of all Irish nationalist politicians and the Northern Ireland Alliance Party. The indifference is based on the calculation that the breakup of the United Kingdom single market resulting from the Protocol and the consequent constitutional and economic isolation of Northern Ireland within the EU single market will lay the basis for an ‘all-Ireland’ economy as the economic foundation for the political unification of Ireland.

The position of Varadkar is politically and economically reprehensible but it is at least intelligible in terms of the imperatives of Irish nationalism. But the attitude of Conservative politicians toward Ulster unionists disclosed by the Brexit negotiations represents a deep moral and political malaise within British conservatism.

The essence of British conservatism is a commitment to the preservation of the sovereign integrity the Union – noticeably absent from the treatment of Northern Ireland within the Brexit negotiations. The absence of that commitment to the Union represents the death of authentic British conservatism which may itself presage the death of Britain.

• Patrick J. Roche, President North Down TUV branch. He was a UK Unionist MLA from 1998 to 2003