Dublin should have taken more care to avoid a public row with London

There has been plenty of comment about the rights and wrongs of the Government’s inter-state case against the United Kingdom’s Troubles amnesty legislation, but little investigation of its strangely terrible timing.

The appeal to the European Court of Human Rights was announced by Tánaiste Micheál Martin on December 19th, in the midst of a final push to get the DUP to restore Stormont before Christmas. Ireland is to argue in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that the provisions of the UK’s Legacy Act are incompatible with its obligations on human rights.

The decision itself had long been considered inevitable and London had been trying to play down its impact. At a summit of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in Dublin on November 24th, UK minister Michael Gove insisted any case would not affect an improving relationship.

“That’s a decision for the Irish government and it in no way leads to any deterioration or difficulty in any of the other conversations that we have,” he said.

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Four weeks later, British and Irish ministers, past and present, were tearing strips off each other. It certainly appeared to be the timing of the announcement that had thrown the British side.

The Government may have reasonably calculated there was no prospect of a Stormont deal in the week before Christmas

The European Court requires appeals to be filed promptly. It recently reduced the time limit from six months to four months after the exhaustion of all domestic remedies. There can be more leeway for inter-state cases, however, as it is debatable what constitutes their final domestic stage. The UK and Ireland might have additional leeway on a Troubles legacy issue, as the Belfast Agreement could be seen as providing further dispute resolution options.

Even on the most rigid interpretation of Strasbourg’s time-limit, Ireland had until January 18th this year, four months after the amnesty legislation was passed. Why file the appeal a full month earlier?

The Government may have reasonably calculated there was no prospect of a Stormont deal in the week before Christmas. DUP sources were briefing it would be unwise to leave a new agreement sitting over the holidays as “the mice will get at it”.

This is partly why the 2020 New Decade, New Approach deal to restore devolution was announced on January 9th. The kindest explanation for the Government’s timing is concern it would run into another mid-January deal. But if Stormont was its concern, Dublin should have taken more care to avoid a public row with London. The damage from such rows goes beyond spooking the DUP. It is universally presumed across the political centre in Northern Ireland that both governments must work together to deliver a Stormont deal. It seems to be universally assumed across nationalism that if there is no deal, both governments must devise a deeper partnership to govern Northern Ireland. None of this is plausible with London and Dublin at each other’s throats.

To be fair to the Government, it could hardly make a public announcement in late December that a Stormont deal was hopeless. It could have warned London privately of its intentions, which raises the question of whether the subsequent argument was staged, or at least played up for certain audiences.

The sharpest British reaction came from northern secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, who is not always seen as an entirely serious character. But there were also warnings of “consequences” for British-Irish relations from Conservative peer Jonathan Caine, a serious backroom operator at the Northern Ireland Office and usually a faultless diplomat.

Unofficially, Downing Street gave furious briefings to the media on how Dublin was being two-faced about the Troubles, jeopardising a Stormont deal and encouraging Conservative backbenchers to call for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. That last concern, already elevated by internal Tory rows over immigration, sounded like a genuine grievance from a fragile British government.

Perhaps there is complacency about possible bad faith from Dublin after so many years of worse behaviour from London

Brandon Lewis was northern secretary in 2021 when plans for the amnesty legislation were unveiled. He published an article on the Conservative Home website two days after Christmas accusing the Irish government of deliberately stoking Tory tensions over the European Convention.

“With elections looming in 2024, and the two (sic) current parties of government in Dublin under pressure from Sinn Féin, there is a real sense that this is as much driven by their own domestic politics and posturing as anything else,” he wrote.

Lewis added a reference to Fianna Fáil’s links to the SDLP and the SDLP’s links to the British Labour Party, implying an elaborate conspiracy theory that was widely ridiculed by nationalists and others.

But prior to his article, the first part of his explanation was a mainstream musing.

Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie had been among those to say Dublin seemed less concerned about Stormont than about denying Sinn Féin an attack line in an election year.

Remarkable incuriosity about the Government’s motivations means they remain unexplained. Perhaps there is complacency about possible bad faith from Dublin after so many years of worse behaviour from London. It can be bad news for Northern Ireland, nevertheless.