Brexit talks - Inevitable but still shocking

Just like death, the inevitable carries the capacity to surprise, challenge, and shock.

It is not necessary to be as politically alert as one former Taoiseach was when he described another former Taoiseach as “the best, the most skilful, the most devious, and the most cunning of them all” to understand that a no-deal Brexit would mean a hard border on this island.

Yet, even if that is a statement of the obvious, yesterday’s EU hard border confirmation still shocks.

It might have been merely sobering had today’s dangerous fantasists — Real IRA terrorists — not set off car bombs in Derry over the weekend.

It might have been less than sobering had this society not had a long, deep, and scarred understanding of what being the junior partner in discussions about how relationships across these islands evolve means.

It might have been a lot less than sobering had so many Tories — junior and senior — not shown such cold indifference and mind-numbing ignorance about these issues as they harrumphed their determination to take back control.

It might be comforting to hope the EU statement was stage-managed to concentrate minds as Brexit talks reach a difficult moment. That possibility is encouraged by the Government hint that the off-message Polish intervention on the backstop was part of the same strategy. That, however, would put wishful thinking in the place reserved for pragmatism.

Pragmatism does not mean that the anger provoked by Britain’s politicians’ sad failure to agree a way forward is not justified. The Conservatives — and their 15-seconds-of-relevance guarantors the DUP — and Labour are so emasculated, so blinded by division, hubris, and toxic nationalism that they are indifferent to the consequences of their actions for their vulnerable constituents or their nearest neighbours.

It is not necessary for a young Tory MP, maybe one of the ardent Leavers born as recently as one of Mrs Thatcher’s premierships, to know what happened at Soloheadbeg — or even at another centenary event, the Amritsar massacre — but they should have an understanding of how their policies play out beyond their own back garden.

It must be assumed, even at this low ebb for the mother of parliaments, that they do but choose to ignore the prospect. This indifference represents such a threat — politically and economically — to continuing stability in Ireland that it may undo decades of progress.

Though yesterday’s obvious, inevitable clarification was shocking, it is more shocking that moderate, generally decent, understanding, and tolerant Britain seems unable to confront its dangerous extremists to avert what might be a mutual catastrophe.

It is unfair, though, to lay the blame entirely at the feet of Britain, tempting though that may be. The EU has, as Britain historically did with Ireland, assumed the whip hand.

Since Brexit talks began, the EU insisted that the Good Friday Agreement means Britain must accept a deal that averts a hard border.

Yesterday shows that the EU is prepared to over-ride the deal and impose a border.

We are, it seems, about to find out in the most dramatic circumstances who our real friends are.