Sir, – Dáithi O'Ceallaigh and Paul Gillespie's piece "Ireland must do its utmost to keep Britain in the EU" (Opinion & Analysis, March 25th) seems to be based on the presumption that the crux of the problem is how to keep Britain alongside Ireland in the EU. The authors made no attempt to recognise that Britain has very valid concerns about the functioning of the EU, whether financially, democratically or from a security standpoint.
These are all areas that Ireland should also be concerned about and yet rarely debates, doubtless due to deference to its European masters.
As for the statement that Britain’s withdrawal from the EU would leave Northern Ireland “profoundly unsettled politically and economically”, one is tempted to say “no change there then”. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN O’SULLIVAN,
Letterkenny,
Co Donegal.
Sir, – Dáithi O’Ceallaigh and Paul Gillespie’s article is timely and it is clear that some thought went into how the EU might be defined and what form it could take in the future. However, interesting as these descriptions are, they do not help outline the inevitability of what’s coming or what we might be doing to plan for a future without the UK in the EU.
We in Ireland can do precisely nothing to influence the outcome of the UK “in/out” referendum. This referendum will be a close-run thing and there is more than a sporting chance that the UK will leave. We should not be surprised at this. The UK has been selective, perhaps with good reason, about the levels of participation it would have in the EU project from the beginning and reluctance has only increased since. The British political establishment and media have ridiculed the EU for years so its voting public has no grá whatsoever for what the EU stands for and, broadly speaking, cares less for much else it purports to do.
At best, the referendum will confirm UK membership but even then that will be on the basis that any continued membership will be grudging and qualified. It seems that Britain would like to stay in for the single market side of things but excuse itself from everything else.
The building consensus is that you can’t really have an open market between jurisdictions that are regulated in different ways. It does not look as if Britain’s wishes, if it is to stay “in” in this qualified way, are all that practical or attractive to other members. Therefore a clear vote to leave or a qualified vote to stay “in” might even amount to the same thing in the end. I think we need to prepare, as much in our minds as anywhere else, for the prospect that Britain will leave.
I can see no reason why the political situation between Ireland and Britain should vary one whit as the friendship and common and mutually substantial business links do not prompt any need for a change in any bilateral arrangements.
A UK exit, or something very like it, is going to happen but this raises more questions about the EU and its status in world affairs than it does in terms of practical effects on Ireland.
I do think we need to be careful about understanding the consequences of a UK exit and we need to be quite practical about planning what we should be doing. We should certainly avoid delving into emotive “what ifs” about Scotland rejoining the EU and asking what Northern Ireland would do then and how all this would impact on us. – Yours, etc,
CHRISTOPHER
VS DOYLE,
Broadway,
Co Wexford.