The expected appointment next week of Keir Starmer as Britain’s seventh Labour prime minister is being viewed as a good omen by Irish Government officials exhausted by the travails of Anglo-Irish relations with the Tories since Brexit.
If Starmer’s recent soothing words towards Ireland are a harbinger of his actions once he takes office, a period of markedly closer political ties between Dublin and London lies ahead.
Labour would be expected to repeal the Legacy Act giving immunity for Troubles crimes, which has already been the subject of legal challenge by the State against the UK government. It would abandon the UK’s Rwanda deportation scheme that contributed towards a spike in migrant flows to Dublin. It would also likely end the Tory obsession with regulatory divergence from the European Union.
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Starmer hopes that by turning the page on relations with the Republic, it could help to open a new book of co-operation with the EU. This could boost UK trade and help to spur the economic growth he desperately needs to fund his domestic agenda of cutting debt and fixing public services while also eschewing big tax hikes.
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“It’s very important that we work closely with our near neighbours in Ireland,” Starmer told The Irish Times on the campaign trail. “I’ve always found that respectful engagement is the way forward in our relations. I hope that with that approach we can make some real progress.”
Starmer was telegraphing his intentions towards the State months before the election was called. Speaking in Belfast last January, he recalled his five-year stint from 2003 working as an adviser to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, which he said taught him how to negotiate the intricacies of Irish community relations. He said it also left him with a personal “love” for Ireland. After he married his wife, Victoria Starmer, in 2007, their first holiday together was to the North.
“I was in love with this island and that love has stayed with me,” he said.
Starmer is even known to wear a Donegal GAA top when he plays seven-a-side football with his friends in north London.
He said the UK government, which he looks set to lead in nine days time, should “normalise and strengthen relations with Dublin” and that Anglo-Irish ties “should never have been this strained”.
“Nothing has been more self defeating [for Britain] than to see our friends in Dublin as adversaries on Brexit,” he said.
For much of the general election campaign, Brexit has been the political issue that dare not speak its name with both main parties avoiding it. Starmer is wary of reopening old wounds in Britain and also of alienating working class voters, many of them Brexit supporters, who he is trying to win back.
Last week, however, he was explicit about his desire to renegotiate parts of the Brexit deal. Standing on a Southampton dock, Starmer said the agreement negotiated by the Tories had been “botched”. Most urgently, Labour wants a deal on veterinary standards, which could ease tensions in the North by reducing the need for customs checks on foods sent there from Britain – lessening the need for a “border down the Irish Sea” that angers unionists.
Labour will also seek an agreement to make it easier for City of London financial workers to do business across the EU. Under the Tories, City officials previously threatened that the UK might squeeze the Republic’s financial industry to gain leverage over this issue. Under Starmer, a more conciliatory approach is expected.
Negotiations with the EU could be difficult, however, as Starmer is adamant that the UK will not rejoin the Single Market, the Customs Union or allow the free movement of workers under his leadership. The latter is likely to be an opening demand of the EU for any tinkering with the Brexit deal.
On Rwanda, Starmer recently confirmed to Sky News that he would “scrap the scheme, so that means the flights won’t be going”. Instead, he wants to negotiate a security pact with EU countries to tackle the gangs that ferry migrants across the English Channel in small boats.
On the Legacy Act, Labour’s intention to abolish it is explicitly laid out in its manifesto. Starmer expanded on his rationale recently while on the campaign trail. “For a government in Westminster to pass legislation which has the support of no political party in Northern Ireland and no community [there] is in my view a mistake, particularly based on my experience [working in the North].”
Unusually for a Labour leader, however, Starmer has been explicit in his view that he would oppose a united Ireland, which he argues is “not even on the horizon”. That stance is seen by some Irish officials as a tactic to appear strong on the union so as to avoid being discredited by the Tories over his intentions for Scotland.
Starmer’s hectic schedule in his first few weeks as prime minister, which includes hosting the European Political Community summit on July 18th, could delay his first official visit to Dublin. But Irish Government officials will be hoping for a some sort of high-profile UK government meeting as an opening gambits to build the smoother relations both sides covet.
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