Brexit fear grows among Irish politicians as referendum approaches

Are you a worried European this morning? There certainly are a few of them around the Kildare St area.

With just over a week of campaigning left in the British referendum campaign, support for the Leave side is growing in the opinion polls and the smell of fear from Brussels is almost overpowering. Or maybe that is the damn brown bin. You know what I mean.

In Irish government circles, the fear has an especially pungent character. Not only would a British decision to leave the EU confront Ireland with the nightmare economic scenario of a split between our two largest export markets and threaten the very stability of the EU, but the ground rules of the Republic's transformed relationship with the North would have to be rewritten.

After nearly 20 years of taking down the Border, the prospect of its re-erection would be very real. The Taoiseach is likely to face questions about this in the Dail this afternoon.

It is impossible to overstate the priority a possible Brexit holds for the Irish government. Everything else pales into insignificance. Ministers have been campaigning amongst Irish communities in the UK in recent weeks but as our political editor Stephen Collins reports today a planned joint event with the Taoiseach and the British prime minister David Cameron in Manchester on Friday has been cancelled.

Someone decided that parading an Eton- and Oxford-educated Tory prime minister around the Labour heartlands of the North of England isn't the best way to win votes, even if he was accompanied by Enda.

There has of course been a good deal of contingency planning going on behind the scenes to prepare for a possible Brexit. But as insiders have pointed out, there’s only so much contingency planning you can do when it’s unclear what exactly Brexit means.

Leave campaigners have been completely vague about what a decision to leave would actually mean, taking cover in the fact that separation would have to be negotiated over a period of years. But they haven’t identified what it is they will want to negotiate – a free trade agreement with the EU? Membership of the Single Market? A complete break?

The only thing the Leavers seem clear on is that they want less to do with ‘johnny foreigner’. No wonder they are doing so well.

But whatever it looks like, for the Irish government, a Brexit would represent the biggest political and diplomatic challenge in at least half a century.

The mandarins in the Department of Foreign Affairs may soon be catapulted into a very different world to the one which they are accustomed. I remember reading Eamon Gilmore’s memoir of his time as foreign minister and remarking on his breathless admiration for the officials in DFA. At the time I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to appreciate Ireland’s diplomatic corps more than they did themselves. But Gilmore did.

If the Brits do go, some pretty nifty diplomatic footwork will be needed from Iveagh House to make the best of a very bad situation. We may all be hoping that Gilmore’s admiration for the mandarins was not misplaced.