My two late grandfathers, both did their part for the cause of Irish freedom. One served four years in prison camps in Wales between 1916 and 1920, the other wrote in detail in a 1951 affidavit of how he hid rifles and bullets in a coal chute, and lost his job for what would today be deemed as terrorist activities.
Both were nationalists, believed in the cause of Irish independence, and were committed to playing their roles as the pages of history unfolded in their everyday events. And that is the thing about history: We are aware of the past, unsure of the present, and unknowing of the future.
There is one proverb that says something to the effect: “May you live in interesting times”; and another that cautions to not repeat the mistakes of history. How often have we drilled into schoolchildren’s heads the great phrases uttered by so many who have shaped our histories?
“Peace in our time.”
“The war to end all wars.”
“I have a dream.”
Now to these, we can add one that so clearly captures these times of fake news and false praise — drum roll please — “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”
That’s the one that history books can share with dodgy used-car salesmen, telemarketers and writers of the finest of print; a phrase that will be read between the lines and will live where ‘i’s are to be dotted and ‘t’s crossed.
These are the words straight from the lips of United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May as she addressed the House of Commons at Westminster, while briefing them on how Britain has secured a deal from the European Union (EU) on moving from the first phase of Brexit talks to the second, where trade and other substantive matters might be negotiated.
These are the words from the head of a lame-duck government that rules divided between itself on the very fundamental question of what the Brexit they so crave actually means. They are the words of a prime minister who has signed an agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and offered £1 billion (Dh4.93 billion) in financial inducements to Northern Ireland to, in the borrowed words of a weak and vacillating former British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, buy peace in May’s time.
And they are the words of a woman who, after a pre-dawn dash to Brussels, was all too grateful to forget the humiliation of the week before when that same DUP pulled the plug on Brexit talks over the meaning and interpretation of the phrase “regulatory alignment”.
She would have signed any deal to at all costs to move the talks on to phase two.
Those two words were the commitment given by Her Majesty’s Government that Northern Ireland would remain in lockstep with the customs union of the EU and the Republic of Ireland. No sooner had that phrase been uttered in London — and it appears as if those closest to May deliberately and purposefully tried to keep the final text from the eyes of the DUP itself — than all hell broke loose.
In Belfast, DUP Leader Arlene Foster lit up the phone lines to Downing Street and Brussels over the very notion that her little corner of the United Kingdom might somehow be treated differently than England, Scotland and Wales.
In Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, saw an opening that if Northern Ireland was to be inside the customs union, then why not Scotland — a measure that would be welcoming her now-weakened case for a fully independent Scotland.
And in London, Mayor Sadiq Khan saw an opening to have the capital treated differently after its 10 million residents voted overwhelmingly to remain inside the EU. It took a week of political persuasion for the negotiators in Brussels, London and Dublin to arrive at a new suitable agreement on the wording over the border. The solution — all of the United Kingdom would have “regulatory alignment” with the EU. All the hot air generated by these Brexit talks so far have only managed to reach a loose agreement on the three elements of phase one — and it has been a capitulation by London on all three — maintaining an open Irish border, securing the rights of EU citizens in the UK and vice versa, and reaching a deal on Britain’s outstanding future financial commitments to the EU
Full “regulatory alignment” of the entire UK to ensures there’s no hard frontier between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to the South. In other words, the UK is committed to staying in the customs union. Sure, phase two talks can move onto trade and its future economic relationship with the bloc. But the UK has already committed to remaining inside the customs union, at least until 2021 if not beyond. (By then, the full extent and cost of this Brexit madness will be fully evident, and few but the most foolhardy would want to move beyond that customs union then, while many more will likely clamour to return to the full ranks of the EU anyway!)
So much for telling the EU to go whistle on the money owed by the UK. All estimates suggest the UK exchequer will be writing cheques worth at least €45 billion (Dh195.81 billion) to Brussels in the next few years. One of the great lies sold to British voters was that leaving the EU would mean another £350 million a week for the embattled National Health Service. There’s a lot of delayed surgeries, unavailable cancer treatments and empty hospital beds tied up in that €45 billion bill.
The most gung-ho hardline Brexiteers are eager to move these talks onto to phase two, and they are keeping quiet now until the deal is sealed in Brussels at the current leaders’ summit. In truth, they know that the deal signed so far by May is unacceptable to their hard-right constituencies, and that their Prime Minister has signed onto softest of Brexits, where the UK will belong as associate member of the European Club.
For now, they are silent, but they will be emboldened by the historic phrase uttered by their lame-duck leader: “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”
History is one thing. Politics, another.
