Winston Churchill’s most famous phrase about Ireland – and the “dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone” – is endlessly, tiresomely quoted but a later utterance is more illustrative of the attitudes held by many in London towards Ireland, then and now.
Speaking in 1922 in the House of Commons, Churchill mused on “the mysterious power of Ireland”, one that “sways our councils, shakes our parties”, and was so frequently able to “stop the whole traffic of the British Empire”.
More than a decade ago a swathe of British political and public opinion ignored repeated warnings that obligations taken on by London in the Belfast Agreement could not simply be ignored as it contemplated quitting the European Union.
For years afterwards London struggled, infuriated that the Brexit its arch-supporters wanted was being impeded, yet again, by the Irish question. In the words of a frustrated Boris Johnson at a private Conservative gathering, the Irish tail was wagging the British dog.
READ MORE
Today, a new column of opinion in London has begun to emerge by those who believe the UK must quit the European Convention on Human Rights if it is ever to bring immigration under control.
For that to happen, however, it would also mean the convention would no longer apply in Northern Ireland. Such a move would threaten the Belfast Agreement – in the words of the Irish Government, the SDLP and the Alliance Party.
In the eyes of a London-based think tank, Policy Exchange report, London is not blocked from quitting the ECHR – the last country to leave was Russia when it was thrown out after invading Ukraine – because of Belfast Agreement obligations.
The claim that a UK withdrawal from the ECHR would break the Belfast Agreement has become “a commonplace” in debate in the UK and Ireland, one that is being “instrumentalised” by some, the report says, dismissively.
It is true that the British-Irish Agreement does not mention the convention but the Belfast Agreement, which was given effect by the separate agreement between the two capitals, doesso repeatedly.
In signing the 1999 British-Irish Agreement the United Kingdom and Ireland agreed to “support, and where appropriate implement” the Belfast Agreement by the governments and Northern Ireland’s political parties.
Back then both countries were part of the European Union, the Policy Exchange report’s authors argue, yet “no one in seriously suggesting that the UK’s withdrawal from the EU” breached anything agreed then.
The convention signed in 1950, the multiparty agreement declared, would be one of the safeguards to “ensure that all sections of the community can participate and work successfully” to operate the institutions created by the agreement.
Key decisions and legislation would be checked to ensure they did not breach the convention, and any Bill of Rights that would be created for Northern Ireland – even if the latter never happened.
The British government,committed to incorporating the convention into Northern Irish law, offering direct access to the courts for breaches of it, including powers to overrule legislation passed by the assembly.
Speaking in July last year in Blenheim Palace to other European leaders in the afterglow of victory, British prime minister Keir Starmer wrapped himself in the mantle of the 60-year-old convention.
“It’s why we will never withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. Churchill himself was among the chief architects of the convention. It was built on the blood bond of 1945, and our shared sacrifice for freedom.
“I myself first read about these principles of the convention and international law in a law library in Leeds, well over 40 years ago now. And that inspired me in everything I have done since then,” the newly-installed prime minister declared.
However, the political winds have little favoured Starmer in the year since. He has chased headlines created by Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, one that is increasingly winning support for its anti-immigration stance.
The rights offered by the convention and mentioned in the agreement – including powers to ensure that Stormont does not discriminate against any minority – can be easily replaced by new UK laws, argues the Policy Exchange report.
Reports such as the one last week do not simply emerge out of the ether in London but often represent the public face of wider, deeper conversations taking place in private.
And they will not go away, especially when Reform is riding high in opinion polls and ever more confident that it has a chance of power after the next Westminster election, due in 2029.
[ Glasgow’s famous welcome for migrants tested by influx of homeless refugeesOpens in new window ]
The London conversation ignores the reality of the negotiations nearly 30 years ago, argues academic, Prof Fionnuala Ní Aoláin. The final outcome was not guaranteed, and an intricate balance of compromises was required.
The conversation now about the ECHR – one that is often badly informed, in Ní Aoláin’s view – ignores that complicated tapestry: “If you pull one piece out of it then other pieces are in question,” she says.
Putting aside the Policy Exchange report, the argument by Reform and others – that rights offered by the ECHR can be replaced by domestic ones – is made by people who want a society with fewer rights, not more.
Despite the support of people such as former Labour ministers Jack Straw and David Blunkett, such views appear to ignore the impact such a move would have on opinion in Northern Ireland, on whether or not an Irish unity referendum should be held.
“The broader issue is that all of this is part of an assault on fundamental human rights that protect unionists as much as they protect nationalists,” says Ní Aoláin, in a view that is shared by many other legal experts.
In addition, there are questions that can be put against the arguments made by Reform, the leader of the Conservatives, Kemi Badenoch, and even Policy Exchange that guarantee that an ECHR departure would solve the problems they say it would.
Such arguments, says former British attorney general Dominic Grieve, ignore the central issue that the UK too often fails to deport those who can be deported because of its own administrative failures, rather than any blockage caused by human rights laws.
“We are busy barking up the wrong tree,” says Grieve. Perhaps this is so. However, the latest debate in London about the ECHR should not be dismissed as a temporary fixation in London that will disappear. We thought this before, to our cost.
Mark Hennessy is Ireland and Britain Editor of The Irish Times
