Owen Polley: Don’t believe the hype … the Republic’s not in a happy place
They saw Ireland as a good global citizen, which showed you could be prosperous and responsible, while the UK was viewed as increasingly right-wing and out of control. This was always a stupid interpretation, shot through with liberal self-loathing. It reminded me of Orwell’s observation, that any “English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God Save the King than stealing from a poor box.” It played into Irish nationalists’ prejudices and encouraged tens of thousands of histrionic Brits to apply for ROI passports. This attitude also brought about alliances between the more bone-headed remainers in parliament and Irish separatists, contributing to the sea border that now separates Northern Ireland politically and economically from Great Britain. Remember, for example, the former House of Commons’ Northern Ireland Committee chair, Simon Hoare, and his constant pro-nationalist interventions. The UK has problems, similar to many western countries, but they do not come from being right-wing and assertive. On the contrary, a series of weak governments allowed immigration to surge, public spending to rise dangerously and the country’s institutions to be demeaned by trendy modern ideas. Meanwhile, our relationship with the EU was defined by Brussels’ hostility to Britain and our ministers’ refusal to get tough with European bureaucrats. If British progressives’ cliches about the UK were inaccurate, their warm fuzzy feelings about the Republic were deranged. Southern Ireland likes to portray itself as economically successful and morally superior, but only gullible Brits are fooled. Last week, for instance, we were reminded that unchecked immigration to the Republic is no more welcome than it is in Great Britain. The riots in Dublin are not a new phenomenon either. There was serious anti-migrant disorder in the Republic before similar scenes came to the UK in the summer of 2024. The trouble reflected the fact that a growing part of the population feels disconnected from mainstream politics. There are commentators who claim that Ireland is more prosperous than the United Kingdom. Their analysis is based on figures that are distorted by the Republic’s tax-haven economy and ignore the cost of living – i.e. what people are actually able to buy with the money they earn. Economists like Graham Gudgin have exposed these tricks, but they are also evident in the amount of discontent the current system generates in the Republic. Look at the state of Irish politics, as underlined again by last week’s presidential election. The two traditional rivals for government, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, now have to form a coalition to maintain power. And the parliament is filled with populist parties from the left, but increasingly also independents on the right, who fiercely criticise a model that is supposedly successful, but excludes many people from its benefits. Sinn Fein keeps telling us that Northern Ireland is failing as part of the UK, and we should be annexed by the Republic, which is doing much better. Listen to any of their representatives in the Dail, though, and decide whether they sound like they live in a booming economy, or a society at ease with itself. The presidential campaign supposedly chooses a ceremonial, largely apolitical head-of-state, but it could scarcely have been angrier or uglier. The landslide winner, Catherine Connolly, far from being a tribune of a ‘new Ireland’, mixed old-style, Brit-hating republicanism, with hard-left, anti-western, anti-capitalist messages. In that regard, she is very like her backers in Sinn Fein, just without the terrorist backstory. The loser, Heather Humphreys, was decent, but rather dull. Even she, though, felt compelled to express hostility to the UK, by supporting breaking it up and extending the Republic’s electoral franchise to Northern Ireland. Despite making these republican comments, she was criticised and abused by opponents and the media for her Presbyterian background. A member of one of Ireland’s most popular rock groups claimed she was the “candidate of the mind colonised by Britain.” That was an insight into how little Irish nationalist attitudes have really changed. It is also a picture almost entirely absent from the push for a border poll, and its depiction on the media. The group Ireland’s Future, with its heavy Sinn Fein influence, had lost any momentum in generating a ‘conversation’ about Northern Ireland’s destruction. But to its rescue came part of the media, and particularly BBC Northern Ireland, with its obsession for portraying this campaign as a debate. Have you witnessed the amount of programming, particularly from certain stables within the organisation, devoted to this subject, of interest only to a narrow section of our society? Then there are the unionists, like UUP leader Mike Nesbitt or former DUP MP Ian Paisley, who insist that we must play a part in it. The Republic, meanwhile, has its own problems to sort out. Far from being a well-adjusted, politically stable society, it is fractious and polarised. It has elected its second hard left president in a row, while, in its parliament, moderates can barely keep control. The left are extreme and anti-western, while the anti-immigrant right has no political outlet, and resorts to violence. Underlying it all, is always a sanctimonious, superior attitude. Rather than being taken in by that, the UK should show more confidence and backbone in the face of constant Irish sniping.