Ireland

It was a ‘rush of blood to the head’. Its central bank would prove to be hopelessly ineffective. And cultural differences would remain too deeply ingrained for an internal market to ever work as it should. We learned this week from papers released in Dublin that Mrs Thatcher was completely damning about the idea of a single currency for the European Union. Looked at with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight, however, it is clear that the most remarkable point about her views is not just how intransigent she was but that she was completely right. The Euro has been a comprehensive failure, just as she said it would be. Rewind three decades to the fading months of the Thatcher premiership and she was facing what turned out to be terminal trouble over her views on Europe.

Series four of The Crown begins with the murder of Lord Mountbatten at Mullaghmore in August 1979. Mountbatten was killed with three others, on the same day 18 British soldiers were ambushed at Warrenpoint. It was a devastating blow for the British establishment. But it held a more intimate horror too. If you listen carefully to the scene in The Crown, you can hear Mountbatten speak to a ‘Paul’ as they prepare his boat, Shadow V, for its fateful journey out of the harbour before being blown to pieces by the IRA.

FTSE indices soared as the Biden Bounce met vaccine euphoria, underpinned by the Bank of England’s announcement of another £150 billion injection of quantitative easing. It was heartening to see shares in airlines, hotels and Rolls-Royce, the aero engine maker, perking up — and hardly surprising to see lockdown winners such as Ocado and Just Eat among the fallers. Across the Atlantic, even mighty Amazon shed 5 per cent on Monday. But stock markets are one thing and real life is another. What matters in the short term is whether Boris Johnson can get us out of the lockdown he clearly didn’t want before the tide of redundancies, heading towards 150,000 a month, crushes the prospects for a consumer-led recovery, even after vaccine distribution has begun.

How popular are circuit breakers? The latest Covid-19 news from Ireland would suggest support varies dramatically between the scientists and politicians. Speaking on RTE, Leo Varadkar revealed the National Public Health Emergency Team had recommended moving to ‘level 5’, which would have amounted to a ‘circuit break’ and another shutdown of the Irish economy. Pushing back, Varadkar told the national broadcaster that outstanding questions about the effectiveness of a temporary shutdown could not be answered to his satisfaction: ‘We didn’t feel it had been thought through properly. For example, we asked for some comfort that four weeks might be enough… They weren’t able to give us that comfort.

Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach, has tendered his resignation. After gambling his political career on an election in which he hoped Brexit would be the defining factor, the Irish voters decided they cared about pretty much anything but. In fact, just one per cent of Irish voters cited Brexit as a decisive factor for them in this month's general election. Instead, voters focused on issues that might actually affect their lives such as housing and healthcare. The result was that Varadkar's Fine Gael party was knocked into third place, behind Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein. The gamble clearly failed. Ireland's new parliament, the 33rd Dail, met for the first time yesterday.

It is obviously true that Sinn Fein’s success in the Irish Republic will increase nationalist pressure for a united Ireland. It does not automatically follow, however, that such pressure will make a united Ireland more likely. A powerful Sinn Fein in the South is a strong recruiter for Unionism in the North. The possibility of nationalists in the North winning a border poll has just receded.

Ireland has given its own twist to the populist uprisings across Europe, with its election ushering in a grim time for Anglo-Irish relations. The results from Saturday's poll – in which Sinn Fein took 24.5 per cent of the vote; Fianna Fáil, 22 per cent; and Fine Gael, 21 per cent – could also cause serious complications in the Brexit negotiations. In so enthusiastically switching its support to Sinn Fein (the party won 13.8 per cent of the vote in 2016), Ireland is endorsing a party that pretends to be democratic, left-wing and progressive but still effectively operates internally along militaristic lines, tolerating no dissent from its elected representatives.

You know the story. A Prime Minister takes a tough line on Brexit talks and holds a snap election thinking voters will be impressed - instead, they don't care and it ends in disaster. It happened to Theresa May in 2017 and it just has happened to Leo Varadkar. The votes are still being counted, but it's clear that no party has a majority, or anything close to a majority and that Varadkar's gamble failed. Support for his Fine Gael has plunged and a stunning Sinn Fein surge has changed everything. It's not just that Sinn Fein won most of the first preference votes. For decades, Irish politics has been divided between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. Now, the big two are a big three - which means none of them are near power. It's new territory for Ireland.

Today’s PMQs contained an example of an almost perfect backbench question. Damian Green, who was Theresa May’s number two, asked if the aim was to reduce Huawei’s share of the 5G network from 35 per cent, and when it would hit zero per cent. Boris Johnson replied that the aim was to reduce Huawei’s share but he conspicuously failed to answer when it would hit zero. Green’s question, followed up by David Davis, shows that concern over the Huawei decision has not abated on the Tory benches. Boris Johnson’s commitment to reduce Huawei’s share of the network will be enough for some.

Yesterday, the Irish government announced that there will be a General Election on Saturday, February 8. Curiously, the path to it was cleared by Boris Johnson’s decisive electoral win last month. Up to now, there has been no desire on the part of either the government or the main opposition parties to hold an election because of the uncertainty surrounding Brexit. Partisan politics were largely set aside, all the parties donned the ‘green jersey’ and teamed up with Brussels to try and ensure either the softest possible Brexit, or no Brexit at all. The united front disguised the fact that, Brexit-aside, the Leo Varadkar-led Government has been a lame duck for months.