Irish Examiner view: Focus on issues not personality

Martin and Johnson to meet at Chequers today

Taoiseach Micheál Martin is to travel to the UK and meet with Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, at Chequers today.

If the relative peace of recent decades has encouraged an impression that the relationship between British and Irish leaders is not as important as it might once have been to gather momentum, that complacency has been shattered.

Brexit and its fallout have, tragically, made that relationship more important than it may have been for some time.

The well-founded fear of betrayal by London unnerved the unionist community to the extent that two loyalist political parties need new leaders. 

Both candidates for the DUP leadership, Edwin Poots and Jeffrey Donaldson, have said they will not operate the Northern Ireland Protocol, despite that agreement underpinning Britain’s EU divorce agreement and remaining part of British law. 

From an Irish perspective, this meeting requires great diplomacy and the razor-sharp antenna of a hard-bitten poker player.

The reliability, focus and competence of the host adds layers as mercurial as Johnson’s personality to proceedings.

This must be a concern as relationships between Irish and British leaders, and societies, can be unduly influenced by the character of those involved.

As Martin and Johnson could hardly be more different, it is important to focus on issues rather than personality or even wallpaper.