Foreign affairs, trade and defence were once pleasant political pastures. Simon Harris has gathered them as his ministerial portfolio at a moment when risk outweighs the advantages. The consequences of success or failure will immediately affect the issue that most concerns voters, which is their pocket. It will make or break a politician who rose without trace in a party where there was no other candidate for the leadership, which automatically conveyed the office of taoiseach. Now he will be tested.
During Brexit, when a lot was at stake, Ireland went with the grain, with friends in Brussels and Washington, and the happy coincidence of fools in charge in London. Now we are going against the grain. Our friends in Brussels feel, with some justification, that we haven’t returned the compliment. There and in Washington, we seem eerily closer to being a country of small stature, not the outsize state that won astonishing diplomatic triumphs over 30 years.
Threats abound. Tariffs are a real possibility, as are changes in US tax laws that will undermine Ireland’s advantage. There will be pressure on US companies not to invest abroad. Our capacity to bring in new companies and investments will be weakened. If rain falls from one of those clouds, we have a problem. Trade policy, intertwined with foreign policy, is now a bread-and-butter issue, and this matters for Harris. Pharmaceutical processes are so complex they are probably embedded here for some time, but intellectual property is an economic chimera and could outsource instantly.
In Brussels, there is no expectation that we can or will play a significant military role in an EU that is rearming. But there is resentment that we have jurisdiction over essential assets under our seas but can barely put a naval vessel to sea and have no primary radar capacity. It is astonishing to recall the ardour of Fianna Fáil TDs such as Dr Bill Loughnane undermining Jack Lynch nearly a lifetime ago, when he announced that British aircraft could overfly the Border as an antiterrorist measure. Now our skies and seas are infested with undetected explorers, probing weakness, with a view to potentially damaging major international infrastructure off the coast. But they are Russian, not British, so we don’t seem to care.
A good foreign policy is one that no one notices. Unfortunately that’s not Simon Harris’s style
Programme for government is notable not just for a lack of ideology, but a lack of passion
Ireland’s risk-averse civil service cannot speed up delivery of the things we need most
Ireland is being harmed by divorce between managing the economy and managing public spending
Ireland’s defence policy was stunningly successful for 100 years because nobody was interested in us. That has changed, and in a context where Ireland is not as loved as it used to be in places that count, it is significant. The issue is not that we aren’t on the front line in Ukraine, it is that we left the backdoor to the European continent wide open. The crisis of Brexit is over, but the longer-term consequences have kicked in. Britain’s departure has accentuated the shift in the centre of EU gravity towards the east. We can no longer swim in the British slipstream. And as Ireland’s real foreign minister, President Higgins, demonstrated when commenting about Nato, we are tone deaf to the concerns of EU states in the east. The Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves criticised President Higgins’s remarks, accusing the Irish of a privileged geographical location and being able to benefit from “implicit” Nato protection. The problem for Harris is that Higgins has the dressingroom at home, and repeatedly scene-sets for Ireland to its disadvantage abroad.
[ I am tired of explaining Michael D Higgins’s words to incredulous English peopleOpens in new window ]
What is needed now is an intense diplomatic effort in places as disparate as Brussels, Washington and Silicon Valley. That requires boots on the ground, and a Minister in the air. What success looks like in part is not being noticed or singled out. Reticence and working quietly for clear strategic aims over a long time isn’t Harris’s style. Short-termism has been his trademark and has diminished him. Repeating the tea-shock style juvenilia of his term as taoiseach would be a mistake with consequences for the country.
There is slim hope that we can unilaterally move Trump in ways that benefit Ireland. The inherited political spectacle of St Partrick’s Day is an opportunity to do that, however. Realistically, the EU is the only game in town for Ireland. There is a concerted effort by the US to divide the 27, and some states will peel away. Europe is desperate for a bargain with the US administration. We have entered a tense and risky period, where Ireland has outsize exposure to economic consequences that, if inflicted, would manifest as hard economic choices here.
[ Nato and Irish neutrality – John Mulqueen on a vexed political issueOpens in new window ]
This is a new beginning for Harris that requires a different approach. Three years from now, he needs to be still Tánaiste and leader of his party to become taoiseach again. His party moved on instantly without a backward glance at the debacle of their election campaign. Fine Gael has a constituency who are up for hard decisions, and the realpolitik of building relationships with the Trump administration. He has the example of his predecessor Enda Kenny, whose relationship with Angela Merkel was essential for Ireland during Brexit. He has ground to make up with Ursula von der Leyen and needs to do it.
Harris has chosen portfolios that are at the cutting edge of decisive events. Success or failure will mark us and him. His party has lost its sense of mission and as a politician he has never had much purpose beyond his ambition. Now he has and it is mission critical for the country.
