Richard Boyd Barrett: Brexit deal institutionalises sectarianism

The one redeeming feature of the deal is that for now, temporarily, it prevents the worst of all possible outcomes, namely a no deal and a hard border north-south, which, as I think we do all genuinely agree, that that would be a disaster. So that is a redeeming feature of the deal, but it is only a temporary guarantee of that because of the consent mechanism. And as Deputy Murphy has rightly said, and something socialists have argued right since the inception of the Northern Agreement, is that it is an agreement very similar to the one in Lebanon that led to decades of sectarian conflict. is that it institutionalises sectarianism, so the consent mechanism is tied up with a form of institutionalised sectarianism, which means that that sectarian poison continues to bubble, and every issue is seen through the prism of sectarianism. And that's a problem. And it does mean that the temporary guarantee that there won't be a border or a hardening of the border is only that temporary. It also, I think, potentially is an absolute administrative and bureaucratic nightmare to administer this. And maybe on the day that the tragic day that it's in it, it might be worth maybe shifting perspective to one of the other consequences of the sort of Brexit that it may facilitate from the point of view of Boris Johnson, but which to some extent has already been facilitated by the policies of the European Union. One of Johnson's major drives in his version of Brexit, of course, is a racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant drive to prevent the free movement of people, and to effectively target and stigmatise immigrants and refugees. And we have seen today the absolutely horrific, obscene, human, tragic consequences of that, of Fortress Europe policies, and of the even worse and more racist and xenophobic policies of Boris Johnson that he hopes and believes this deal will facilitate. And it's really, you know, it's awful to think Ireland may have played a role in this. 29 people suffocating in a lorry that almost certainly travelled through this country. And you have to ask why or what is it about European immigration policy, Fortress Europe policy, that is leading people to take those desperate measures? Because the policy is racist. That's why. And it then feeds into things like what's going on in Turkey at the moment. That Europe does deals and pays money to a regime like the Turkish regime to keep the immigrants out. And then that regime does what it's doing to the Kurds. And then invading northern Syria in order to further drive back the Kurds. The very selfsame Kurds who fought a heroic battle against ISIS in Kobani and other parts of that border area. Sacrificed on the big chess board of imperial intrigue and manipulation and real pragmatic politics, so called. So that is what Boris Johnson sees this deal as facilitating. Is that kind of race to the bottom in terms of racist immigration policy, attacking labour standards, attacking environmental standards and so on. And the deal effectively facilitates that. And, you know, it's not difficult for Europe to pose as a relatively progressive bulwark when the protagonist or the antagonist is Boris Johnson. Who's obnoxious, right wing, racist, playing to the absolute lowest common denominator. But as Deputy Murphy has alluded to, when you look at many of the things Europe itself is doing in terms of immigration policy that can result in that kind of tragedy. Or doing trade deals with Bolsonaro. Where we know the guy is slaughtering the rainforests and destroying actually the forests that produce the oxygen for the world. That allows us to breathe. But trade, German manufacturing wanting to sell cars in Germany, whatever it is, overcomes the environmental imperatives, the climate imperatives. And Europe does those rotten deals with Bolsonaro or for that matter more recently with Trump. So, of course, a no deal, a border is the worst case scenario. But let's not dress up what this deal is, what Johnson represents or indeed Europe's own culpability for many of the horrors we see around Europe and the world.