Perfidious Albion and the trashing of the GFA

By Brian Feeney (for the Irish News)

You’ve read this judgement by General de Gaulle here before but it’s worth reminding you of it again: “For England there is no alliance which holds, nor any treaty that’s valued, nor any truth which counts.”

He came to that conclusion after enduring years of double-dealing by British prime ministers both during and after World War II. The course of events since 2016 has provided ample proof of de Gaulle’s dictum as British prime ministers twisted and wriggled to undo agreements they’d formally signed with the EU.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise therefore when Professor Katy Hayward published an article on February 7 showing how the British had breached their Good Friday Agreement obligation to exercise ‘rigorous impartiality’ here in their dirty deal with the DUP.

Hayward dates the British breach from the earlier dirty deal with Theresa May in 2017 to keep her in power, a deal which John Major quite correctly stated breached the GFA. However, as you’ve read here over the years, the British government’s behaviour since 2010 has routinely trashed their obligation, starting most publicly with the decision of the now disgraced Owen Paterson to abandon 50-50 recruitment to the PSNI at the behest of the DUP.

David Cameron courted the DUP assiduously during his coalition government in case he might need them in a dispute with his Lib Dem partners. As the 2015 general election approached they were guests at Downing Street garden parties; they might be useful post-election.

None of the successive clueless proconsuls inflicted on this place from 2010 neglected to proclaim their undying passion for the union, something Thatcher’s proconsuls seldom if ever did. None of the post-2010 proconsuls ever took the existence of the growing nationalist community under their notice.

‘Rigorous impartiality’ is not the only commitment that is likely to go west if the current pestiferous Conservatives were to win the coming election. Last week Policy Exchange, one of the right-wing think tanks that feed into Conservative policy, published ‘Closing the Back Door: Rediscovering Northern Ireland’s Role in British National Security’.

Policy Exchange’s documents are not to be ignored, however crackers. The Daily Torygraph describes the think tank as “the largest, but also the most influential think tank on the right”. ConservativeHome says it’s “the pre-eminent think tank in the Westminster village”.

Last week’s paper starts by repudiating what it admits is one of “the key building blocks in the peace process”, the 1993 Downing Street Declaration which stated that Britain has ‘no selfish strategic interest’ in the north. Policy Exchange however, says: “The political unity of the Union dictates that, by definition, Northern Irish and British strategic interests are one and the same.”

The gist of the paper is that because the Republic is “an unreliable security partner” since it is deficient in equipment and resources, air and naval, and is ‘Anglophobic’, the threat that Russia presents to the Western Approaches and north Atlantic can only be countered by Britain reintegrating the north into the UK’s national defence system.

That means re-establishing active naval and air bases at Derry and Aldergrove. The Derry base should be equipped with surface and sub-surface vessels able to protect “critical undersea infrastructure” (cables). They also recommend exerting pressure on Dublin to play its part in collective security and suggest encouraging the EU and NATO “to impel (sic) the Republic to take its security obligations seriously”.

There’s more, much more, but like the rest of the paper it’s cloud-cuckoo land. That’s because the thinking behind it is based on far-right imperialist fantasy that vastly overrates Britain’s declining power, a mindset rooted in contemporary Britain’s origin myth: ‘standing alone’ in 1940 (so much for thousands of imperial troops), the D-day landings, toxic nostalgia for lost empire, all subsumed these days in the imagined notion of ‘global Britain’.

The reality is that Britain is a medium-sized European power incapable of defending the Western Approaches even with an extra naval base in Derry, even if they could afford one. Nevertheless, there are people in the Conservative party casually willing to sacrifice the British-Irish relationship and the stability the peace process provided here in pursuit of a fantasy of great power Britain

Policy Exchange doesn’t allow reality to interfere with its recommendations. The reality is that Britain is a medium-sized European power incapable of defending the Western Approaches even with an extra naval base in Derry, even if they could afford one. Britain’s fleet is its smallest since the 18th century: 21 surface vessels. Its army is the smallest since the 18th century: 77,000. It has 120 fighter planes. The US has 1,850, Russia 800, France 224. After the Charlie Hebdo shootings France deployed more gendarmerie (100,000) than the British have troops in their army.

Luckily there won’t be any naval or air bases built here because Britain is broke. Nevertheless, there are people in the Conservative party casually willing to sacrifice the British-Irish relationship and the stability the peace process provided here in pursuit of a fantasy of great power Britain.

Why do so many European languages have a version of the phrase ‘Perfidious Albion’?

Urgent Appeal