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What the British don’t understand about America and Ireland
“What do you call this?” the historian Tim Carey asked his followers in a tweet posted on Friday along with a photo taken of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, and Mann. A loaded question if there ever was one, it was not lost on me that I saw the tweet on 23 October — which was the 20th anniversary of the IRA beginning the decommissioning its weapons and, with that act, saving the peace process.
There is not much about Northern Ireland and Brexit that I can write that has not already been written. However, there is one point of confusion that not only continues to astonish me, but which I think I can help shed some light on.
Many of my British friends — Conservatives, mostly — fail to understand the unique place Ireland, including Northern Ireland, holds in the hearts and public imagination of the American people.
It is said that the UK/US alliance is the “Special Relationship.” I hold that the true special relationship is between the US and Ireland. If Brexit undoes the peace which has held since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, it will be the UK which Americans blame — and the UK which faces the foreign policy consequences.
Think I’m kidding? Last month, Boris Johnson finally admitted what the rest of us knew all along: there is no US/UK trade deal in the offing. US President Joe Biden “has shown little interest in negotiating a trade deal with Britain,” the AP reported, “partly because of his concerns about Northern Ireland.” The president warned that he would “not at all like to see, nor, I might add, would many of my Republican colleagues like to see, a change in the Irish accords, the end result having a closed border in Ireland.” The AP then goes on to note that Biden has “consistently shown pride in his Irish roots.”
It is true the president is proud of his Irish heritage. But presidents come and go. What should be of more concern to British policy makers is the point Biden made about Republicans also agreeing with him. Ireland is one of the…
