More is the pity. This result may be perfectly clean, but it is still fishy: they have still lost in their fisheries three times as much as they have gained at all from the EU.
But they never have got the hang of this independence lark. Mass provision of troops for the British Army as if nothing had happened. No passport controls at the docks. A built-in one-for-one arrangement with sterling until into the 1980s. So many of them living over here that they have always been able to vote and stand in our elections. And much more besides.
They only went in because we were going to, so economically they couldn't not. They were only able to keep out of NATO because they knew that, with our not insignificantly Irish Armed Forces as much as anything else, we were always going to protect them anyway. They joined the Euro because, in the early Blair years, they thought that we might.
The spectator sees more of the game. The Irish can see how signed up to European federalism we are. And that is why they are. Only more honestly. They certainly wouldn't mind Tony Blair as President anything like as much as people in his own country would. Sinn Féin has always called Dublin governments "British governments by proxy". Well, that was clearly what people wanted. With the EU now Britain's government, having it headed by an Englishman, Scotsman, or whatever it is that he is ("Simply British"?) is anything but an argument against it to them. It is more like the natural order.
Those who feel strongly about a distinctive, and so far as possible self-governing, Ireland are like those who feel strongly about a Catholic Ireland, or a Gaelic Ireland, or an Ireland which cherishes the lore of Irish Nationalism: the only such Ireland now is within the United Kingdom, where these things are actively encouraged economically, socially, culturally and politically. In the Republic, they are being systematically suppressed. With, it transpires today, enthusiastic public support.
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So my country did not listen to your plea yesterday. A decision of course which I regret but of course welcome the fact that my own nation is democratic enough to allow these decisions to be put to its citizens......er twice.
ReplyDeleteUnlike our neighbours where Britain does not give its subjects the same courtesy.
Not sure about this mass recruitment business. 400 troops including L Cpl Malone who was rejected by the Irish Army does not seem to be mass recruitment.
I dont know what percentage 400 constitutes of British Army strength......not a lot I would think. Yet oddly the British are concerned enough about foreigners in the Army to cap recruitment at 15%.
"400 troops including L Cpl Malone who was rejected by the Irish Army does not seem to be mass recruitment"
ReplyDeleteIt is by today's standrads.
"Yet oddly the British are concerned enough about foreigners in the Army to cap recruitment at 15%"
Because no one else wants to join. But that's a whole other story. Idon't understand this cap, though. Let them sign up if they want to. There is clearly no shortage of them.
Well I think the cap is set at 15% because an Army reliant on foreigners is of course not a national army. It is just mercenary. There is also an element of a threat to national security to have so many. I understand that the bul of regiments the figure is only around 7% but the concern is in some scientific fields. The Medical Corps seemingly is around 15%.
ReplyDeleteIf you are correct and nobody else wants to join the British army, it is a sad reflection on the standards of patriotism in Britain today.
Have you perhaps thought of joining the TA yourself. You could be perhaps officer material.
I'd never get through the medical.
ReplyDeleteThey are not mercenaries, they are from countries in which the historic relationship with Britain is part of the culture and the identity.
But I wouldn't charge British people consciously not joining the Forces with unpatriotism. If we only fought patriotic wars, then they would join, as they always used to.
David, this post is neither fair nor accurate, and I wonder where you're getting your information from. The fisheries claim is a common myth, to start with: at the time of accession, our national fishing waters were a narrow coastal strip; our fishing industry was tiny, with barely 2,000 full-time fishermen, and chronically underdeveloped; we ate less fish than any other EEC country; in short we lacked the capacity, the inclination, and any long-term ambition to exploit our geographic position.
ReplyDeleteIt's absurd to claim that the only reason Ireland didn't join NATO was because the Irish knew the British would protect them. In case you hadn't noticed, Britain's history in Ireland is not one of protection so much as, well, aggression. Even in World War Two there were those in Britain who were in favour of invading afresh. And who would these supposed protectors have been protecting us from from? Surely not the only country in the world that had recognised the existence of the Irish Republic when we were fighting for independence. And in case you don't know who that was, it wasn't the USA.
The only time since independence when Ireland provided large numbers of troops to fight in the British army was WW2, when 60,000 soldiers from the then Irish Free State served. Given the government's formal stance of neutrality in the war, and its refusal to formally ally itself with the UK and the USA, let alone the USSR, this should hardly be construed as a dependent relationship; some people may have joined the British army due to the vestiges of Stockholme syndrome, but many more would have done so to fight the Nazis or simply because of a sense of adventure. Currently only about 400 of the 112,000 soldiers in the British army are from the Republic of Ireland, so that'd be one out of every 280 soldiers. I'd call that a fairly insignificant contribution, all told.
What's more, the special relationship regarding Ireland and the UK on passports was always reciprocal, and while the British have always allowed the Irish to vote in Britain, it's only recently that British citizens have been automatically entitled to the same rights in Ireland. Does this really mean that Ireland isn't independent of Britain? You could argue the exact opposite, in fact, and it'd be no less ludicrous a claim.
ReplyDeleteGovernment papers from the sixties and early seventies make it clear that joining the EEC was about gaining independence from the UK, not joining it. Since 1905 or so Irish nationalists had recognised that political independence was meaningless without economic independence, and with protectionism having failed to break Ireland's dependency on the UK, the strategy changed to one which logically involved becoming a member of the EEC. Regarding loss of sovereignty, the Department of Foreign Affairs frankly stated that we could not lose what we did not have.
We joined the European Monetary System in 1978, although the UK stayed out, and the link with Sterling was broken the following year. We began making plans to join the Euro during the negotiations for the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, even though it really didn't look likely that the British, in thrall to an imagined past and to the Murdoch press, would be following suit.
As for the idea of Blair as President, even if he does get picked for this job, he'd be just one of three presidents, just like at the minute. Do you get queasy at the thought of being subject to President Barossa, President Busek, or President Reinfeldt?
Just about the only point in this that strikes me as compelling or vaguely true is that the Irish can see how signed up to the European project the British political class are, leaving aside the wailings of the Murdoch, Desmond, Rothermere, and Barclay Bros press and those they've brainwashed. Whatever about the lies they tell to the ordinary people, your political class must be fully aware that it is hardly in Britain's interest to be a client state of the Americans, and that it makes far more sense to be one of a small number of influential countries steering the political course of their own continent than to be a mere vassal of a country, however friendly and well-intentioned, an ocean away.
Your fisheries have lost £150 billion as a direct consequence of EU membership, three times the £50 billion that you have received in EU largesse. Add in that the UK is a net contributor to the EU budget, and even that largesse makes you economically dependent on Britain in general and England in particular.
ReplyDelete"It's absurd to claim that the only reason Ireland didn't join NATO was because the Irish knew the British would protect them"
It is precisely the case. If you think that the Red Army would have stopped here and left you alone, then where does one even begin? People in the Free State didn't think that about the Wehrmacht: with no conscription in Northern Ireland, more people from the Free State than from there joined up. So who would really have objected, one has to wonder, to a British re-occupation during "The Emergency"? Montgomery came from Cork and considered himself Irish to his dying day, so perhaps he could have been Viceroy?
"The only time since independence when Ireland provided large numbers of troops to fight in the British army was WW2"
Simply not true. There not very many in absolute terms these days, but that is because there are not very many people at all in the British Army these days. It couldn't function without the Irish, among others. And I say again that a far higher proportion of the population there has at some time sworn the oath of a British soldier (never mind relatives, widows on pensions, and so on) in the Irish Republic than in any of England, Scotland or Wales, at least, and probably Northern Ireland as well. The Royal British Legion pays out a lot, and I really do mean a lot, in Ireland.
"What's more, the special relationship regarding Ireland and the UK on passports was always reciprocal"
I don't think that there could be any better illustration my point than that.
"while the British have always allowed the Irish to vote in Britain, it's only recently that British citizens have been automatically entitled to the same rights in Ireland"
Because so very many of the Irish have always preferred to live over here. Again, illustrating my point.
"Government papers from the sixties and early seventies make it clear that joining the EEC was about gaining independence from the UK, not joining it"
In those days, everything had to be about "independence from Britain". It was flagrantly the opposite of the case where going into Europe was concerned. And if you have to keep saying it...
"Since 1905 or so Irish nationalists had recognised that political independence was meaningless without economic independence, and with protectionism having failed to break Ireland's dependency on the UK, the strategy changed to one which logically involved becoming a member of the EEC"
That's the worst "logic" I've ever read.
"Regarding loss of sovereignty, the Department of Foreign Affairs frankly stated that we could not lose what we did not have"
Well, you said it.
"We joined the European Monetary System in 1978, although the UK stayed out, and the link with Sterling was broken the following year"
ReplyDeleteOh, no, the one-for-one deal was still going on later than that.
"We began making plans to join the Euro during the negotiations for the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, even though it really didn't look likely that the British, in thrall to an imagined past and to the Murdoch press, would be following suit"
Certainly not most people's memory of the years when Rifkind was Foreign Secretary and Clarke was Chancellor.
"Do you get queasy at the thought of being subject to President Barossa, President Busek, or President Reinfeldt?"
Yes. But the Irish will love President Blair. He has just the right accent for the man they assume should be in charge.
And then the standard blather about the EU as a bulwark against American domination. It has been an American-sponsored project since the Forties. That is why the British and German political classes are so keen on it. That is why a textbook neocon like Barosso (Maoist turned rabid "free"-marketeer and Bush supporter) is so keen on it, too.
Far from being singularly committed to their own independence, the Irish have no proved that they couldn't care less either about that, or about any distinctively Irish culture, or about any serious role for Catholicism. The fact that "guarantees" about neutrality (a pure fiction anyway) and abortion had to be extracted proves that the threats existed. And those "guarantees" were worthless, anyway. It's all over.
Brainwashed by the media? Compared to RTE?
ReplyDeleteIf the EU is about Irish independence from Britain then why are Sinn Fein its strongest opponents?
David, this is silly, and not just because your fishery money figures are wholly based on the assumptions that the 200-mile limit had been in place when we began accession talks and that we actually had a valid fishing industry in the seventies.
ReplyDeleteLook, it's nonsense to claim that there aren't many people in the British army these days and that it couldn't function without the Irish. There are 112,000 people in the British army - about 10,000 of those in training at any given point - of whom only 400 are from the Irish Republic. What makes these 400 Irish people so much more important than the other 111,600 soldiers?
Do you have any statistics whatsoever on the number of former British servicemen in Ireland, as opposed to the number in any of the four chunks of the UK? Any at all?
By the way, the parity link between the Irish and British pounds broke on 30 March 1979.
Regarding NATO, why do you think anyone would have believed Britain would have been able to protect Ireland from the Soviet Union? Only a few years earlier it had barely been able to protect itself from Germany! When you say Britain, do you mean America?
As for your question of who would have objected to the British reoccupation of a country that had fought to expel them only twenty years earlier, have you ever read anything about Ireland, or, preferably visited Ireland or, indeed, anywhere in the real world?
For what it's worth, I don't see the EU as a bulwark against American domination, for what it's worth. I see it as an amplifier for our national interests, and a political expression of a shared cultural reality.
The RTE point indicates what a British referendum would be like: a month of the BBC on the subject, leading to a Yes vote. That's why Cameron wants it.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right about Sinn Fein.
And now that the EU is to be the State, will there ever be another Irish referendum on it? There doesn't seem to be any need of one, or even any right to hold one. It's all over.
"your fishery money figures are wholly based on the assumptions that the 200-mile limit had been in place when we began accession talks and that we actually had a valid fishing industry in the seventies"
ReplyDeleteTell it to your own fishermen. Such as there still are.
"Do you have any statistics whatsoever on the number of former British servicemen in Ireland, as opposed to the number in any of the four chunks of the UK?"
Oh, I could probably find out. But you know I'm right on this one. Most of the ex-Army types in England are over 70 and go back to National Service. Whereas Ireland is crawling with them. That's a lot of pensions, a lot of widows' pensions, a lot of payments from the Legion, and so on.
"By the way, the parity link between the Irish and British pounds broke on 30 March 1979"
Funny how it was still going on quite a while after that, then. Yet another perfect illustration of my point, if everyone just carried on doing it anyway.
"Regarding NATO, why do you think anyone would have believed Britain would have been able to protect Ireland from the Soviet Union?"
Yes. I think everyone believed it. Knew it, in fact. Who do *you* think would have done so, and why? Irish governments (Fianna Fail as well as Fine Gael) co-operated with NATO in all sorts of ways on exactly that understanding. "British government by proxy" hissed Sinn Fein. Well, quite.
"As for your question of who would have objected to the British reoccupation of a country that had fought to expel them only twenty years earlier, have you ever read anything about Ireland, or, preferably visited Ireland or, indeed, anywhere in the real world?"
More than most Irish Nationalists ever have, I find. The Free State provided so many volunteers for the British Armed Forces that she was effectively in the War. The stationing of large numbers of those Forces under some Anglo-Irish commander (there were plenty to choose from) in the event of an even more serious threat to Ireland would have bothered ... well, who, exactly?
"For what it's worth, I don't see the EU as a bulwark against American domination, for what it's worth. I see it as an amplifier for our national interests, and a political expression of a shared cultural reality."
Well, there really is no answer to that. Except that you have now voted to find out exactly how and why the EU wishes to "amplify" or "express" anything to do with small countries such as Ireland. You really can't ever have wanted to be independent all that much. It's all over.
David, you seem oblivious to facts. This is most peculiar. I used to read this blog quite a lot back in the day, and have long linked to it on my own, but I don't think I'd have done so had you behaved in this way.
ReplyDeleteThere were 2,000 fulltime fishermen in 1973. There are 15,000 people employed in the Irish seafood industry now. This is an improvement. In 1973 our coastal waters extended twelve miles, and no more. This was upped to 200 in 1976, taking in areas that loads of other countries already fished in, notably those countries we wanted to trade with. How do you think we would have done in a trade war with them, especially given that we didn't have a fleet to speak of? In fact, how could we have policed this new chunk of national territory, given that that our navy was tiny?
As for ex-servicemen, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Just going on personal experience, allowing that I'm half-Irish and half-English, lived in Ireland till I was 28 and have lived in England since...
None of my Irish uncles or cousins served in the British armed forces, and none of my neighbours on my street did either. What's more, I don't know anybody who ever speaks of having served in any of the British forces, but that's hardly surprising, given that World War Two was a long time ago.
In England, however, my ex-girlfriend's Mum, Dad, and Grandfather were all in the RAF. One of my friends is in the navy. Two uncles served in the army in the fifties. Another cousin served in the eighties. One of my best friends was a tank captain.
This shouldn't be surprising, given how apparently only 400 Irish citizens serve in the British army now. That'd be 0.009% of the Irish population. Even if only 90,000 of the British army's 112,000 troops are actually British, this'd mean 0.15% of the pupulation of the UK are currently in the army.
It's interesting that you keep quoting the Sinn Fein fantasy that the Republic's government was a proxy one one for Britain; do you do this in the light of your belief that Irish nationalists don't live in the real world? There are certainly elements in Sinn Fein that fit that description.
As for the rest, it seems there's little point arguing with you. If facts won't penetrate your frightened prejudices, there's no point arguing.
It's all over.
Indeed it is.
ReplyDeleteI think she realises what she's done. Irish independence, as much as there ever was, has been signed away and an English toff whose granddad was an Orangeman is to be the President.
ReplyDelete