Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said he is “encouraged” by conversations with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on the Northern Ireland Protocol, and that the EU is “listening” and wants to find a solution.
Mr Martin was speaking as he delivered the Romanes Lecture at the University of Oxford. Previous speakers included Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Mary Robinson.
Speaking about the ongoing impasse over the Northern Ireland protocol, Mr Martin said Europe is determined to find an answer.
“To those who have pointed to problems in the operation of the Protocol, I want to say that we are listening and Europe is determined to find a solution.”
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Mr Martin said he was “very encouraged by my conversations on this with Prime Minister Sunak. I am persuaded that he understands that we urgently need to find a way back to an agenda defined by growth and cooperation.”
Mr Martin was delivering a speech on liberal democracy and the threat of populism, and used the opportunity to decry Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it was borne from a desire to prevent democracy succeeding.
“Russia’s escalation of its eight-year war against Ukraine draws on a vision of restored imperial grandeur, but it is ultimately more about the desire to prevent liberal democracy succeeding in a former imperial domain.
“This is also seen in the fury directed by the Putin regime and its apologists against the success of the Baltic democracies.”
The Taoiseach said that the “fury against the power of democracy to inspire change is also seen in the sustained investment by Russia in ‘anti-system’ movements within democracies.
“Russia’s war against Ukraine is, as I have said, fundamentally about an autocratic regime being fearful of the growing strength of democratic values on its borders. Putin fears democracy far more than he fears the non-existent military threat against Russia.”
Mr Martin said the people of Ukraine are willing to sacrifice everything “because they want to secure a free and prosperous future for their country. For them, the only way of securing that future is not only to be a liberal democracy but to be a European liberal democracy.”
Separately, Mr Martin said he believed that the most corrosive factor within democracies is the “growing dominance of the populist framing of issues.”
“Populism is not a coherent ideology. It lacks core theoretical texts or a consistent set of policy prescriptions. It is based on promoting division, group loyalty and fear of the other. Most of all, it is flexible and adaptable – it finds no virtue in consistency or accuracy.”
Mr Martin said he believes there is a widespread threat to the core principles of liberal democracy.
“In Europe, which is my main concern, we are facing aggression from outside and social division within. A new age of uncertainty has often seemed to have become an age of instability and regression. The question has emerged of whether or not moderate politics can survive in the face of an angry public discourse which has become more populist and divisive.”
He also referenced an “ever more rapid news cycle and little time for reflection.”
“There is no day without new headlines, and public commentary mostly equates discussion with delay. We are the poorer for this.”
