Theresa May’s trip to Northern Ireland was too little, too late

The prime minister met with Northern Irish parties to discuss the Irish backstop on Wednesday, but she had nothing new for her Stormont colleagues. She could have delivered that lack of information months ago

Caitlin Morrison
Wednesday 06 February 2019 17:25 GMT
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Theresa May says she's 'not proposing' to replace Irish backstop

The prime minister went to Belfast this week to create yet more confusion about the Irish backstop and its place in her Brexit deal if that wasn’t her aim, it’s certainly what she achieved.

Theresa May rattled Brexiteer cages when she told Northern Irish business leaders that there was “no suggestion” of removing the backstop, and instead said she merely wants to change the wording of the provision, leaving the tentative truce among the Tories once again looking like it was about to fall apart.

Downing Street later insisted that all options remain open, including full replacement – which indicates that the PM said what she did only because she was faced with the anger and distrust of the people who will actually be affected by any problems with the Irish border post-Brexit.

Which begs the question – why did she leave it so long before speaking to these people?

Her off-message answers to the audience in Belfast on Tuesday suggested that she was finally beginning to see how all the deal-making and breaking has gone down over there.

Indeed, it must be difficult to stick to the party line of “I’m sorry I haven’t a clue” when confronted with the fact that Westminster policies have left many in Northern Ireland feeling “betrayed and shafted”.

However, if May thinks her rogue reassurances about the backstop will get rid of some of this bad feeling… well it wouldn’t be surprising, given she’s shown almost total disregard for the people of Northern Ireland throughout the Brexit process.

This visit has come entirely too late to be of any value either to May or to Northern Ireland. There are now just 51 days to go until the UK is supposed to leave the EU, and there is still no clarity on what exactly that departure will look like.

Northern Ireland has been told that there will be no hard border, but given no detail about what will happen instead, and the backstop, meant to guard against the hard border that nobody wants, is as up in the air as it ever was.

We woke up today to headlines about proposed technological solutions to the border question. One such fix involves using mobile GPS on mobile phones to track people’s movements across the border.

Clearly this is a plan devised by someone who has not spent much time near the border in question. The vagaries of phone signal in the area make it difficult to arrange a coffee, let alone prop up a customs system.

Meanwhile, even if these plans looked like they might work out, 51 days doesn’t give us time to make sure.

One Belfast resident summed up how many of her peers feel, telling The Independent: “[May] says, ‘We are looking at this now’, but why weren’t you looking at it two years ago?”

This is the biggest question that hangs over the government. The question they should really be made to answer is more like “why weren’t you looking at it before the referendum?”, but we’ve all had to recalibrate our expectations since then.

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May met with Northern Irish political parties on Wednesday, but comments from party leaders revealed that the prime minister had nothing new for her Stormont colleagues. She could have delivered that lack of information months ago.

At the moment, just seven weeks ahead of Brexit, the prime minister has entered hurricane mode, moving slowly through the UK (heading to Brussels to renegotiate the backstop next) and leaving a trail of confusion and anger behind her.

Perhaps if she had taken on board the views of people and businesses in Northern Ireland at an earlier stage this wouldn’t be the case.

But if May thinks her last-minute visit to Northern Ireland will reassure people there that she’s committed to protecting their best interests, she’s clearly just as confused as the rest of us.

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