Newton Emerson: Ireland, North and South, will miss Phil Hogan’s voice on Brexit

Last September, on the day he was appointed European trade commissioner, Phil Hogan made an ingenious suggestion.

A new all-Ireland oversight body could be set up to manage the Brexit backstop through "the North-South dimension in the context of the Good Friday agreement", he told a press conference.

Brexit negotiations at that point had been sidetracked by DUP demands for Stormont oversight of the backstop, to be arranged as a unionist veto. The DUP still held the balance of power at Westminster and its grip over new prime minister Boris Johnson, while loosening, appeared significant. It was clear the European Commission found this exasperating.

Adding to the concern was that Stormont had been mothballed for nearly three years. There was little guarantee it would ever return, and no sign it would do so imminently. The DUP was making restoration appear even less likely by adding a Brexit poisoned chalice to the mix. While many people conceded there was a democratic deficit with the backstop, nobody seemed to know what to do.

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Frontstop

Hogan's approach was to note any "constitutional issues" within Northern Ireland that arose due to the backstop could be "improved upon", before pivoting away from Stormont – strand one of the Belfast Agreement – to strand two, its North-South aspect.

The sole institution in that strand, the North-South Ministerial Council, cannot function without Stormont ministers, so the commissioner was hinting at a shadow institution, perhaps with Northern representation from party leaders.

Ireland's next commissioner is not expected to retain the trade portfolio and cannot be confirmed in office before the end of next month

The DUP was plainly thrown by the idea, welcoming its pragmatism while also insisting unionists would never agree to a “Northern Ireland-only backstop”.

Hogan's proposal went nowhere and was superseded weeks later by events, as Johnson and then taoiseach Leo Varadkar agreed a frontstop over the DUP's head.

But there remains much about the suggestion that is fascinating and perhaps ominous, given Hogan's resignation. It is fair to suspect only an Irish commissioner would have looked at a deadlock London and Brussels saw as confined to Northern Ireland and decided to expand it North-South, in terms of the Belfast Agreement. It was certainly easier for an Irish commissioner to advocate it.

Hogan may not have been personally indispensable in this regard: any Irish representative in his position could have done the same. However, now that he has resigned, Ireland’s next commissioner is not expected to retain the trade portfolio and cannot be confirmed in office before the end of next month, when negotiations on a Brexit trade deal enter their final weeks.

The European Commission may be perfectly capable of understanding the Belfast Agreement without Irish assistance. Sabine Weyand, its director general for trade, is famously across every detail of Brexit and Northern Ireland. But knowing the agreement inside out does not make it a problem-solving context for Brussels.

It would be a mistake to think unionists or the UK government were enjoying Hogan's troubles and now his departure

The EU has consistently misrepresented the peace process and Europe’s role in it, to an extent only cynicism can explain. Alleged requirements in the agreement for EU membership, an invisible Border and North-South policy co-operation have simply been made up. When Brussels did decide on Brexit solutions it wanted them to operate entirely via its own treaties, overseen by new EU-UK committees. The UK can bring Stormont ministers to the Ireland and Northern Ireland committee when Irish ministers are present, but this has no parallel with the careful balance of the Belfast Agreement.

Stumble

It could be said that Varadkar’s government showed identical cynicism throughout Brexit negotiations, and may have given the commission and other member states their lead. But as Hogan showed, that was not the only lead Irish figures could give.Nobody is irreplaceable and no politician should be too big to fail. Had he stayed in office, Hogan might have been too damaged to wield influence over the next critical stage of Brexit in any case.

Yet an Irish stumble at this moment, even briefly, has a cost that should not be downplayed in the belief that Brussels and Dublin have the same interests or see the dangers of Brexit in the same way.

Brussels will insist on a hard Border if it considers that necessary to protect the single market – something made increasingly likely by unworkable demands on the sea border. Brussels is cavalier about political stability within Northern Ireland, having talked security threats up rather than down, and it considers entrusting any of its interests to peace-process institutions bizarre. What is a mere British-Irish treaty compared with the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union?

It would be a mistake to think unionists or the UK government were enjoying Hogan’s troubles and now his departure. While never an ally, he was at least able to see Brexit on an Irish and British scale. A commission where there is no Irish voice as trade talks stagger to a conclusion is never going to ask how Brexit problems can be fitted into Belfast Agreement solutions.