Brexit referendum result is an era-defining one

On the top floor of Government Buildings, in the network of offices that house officials from EU Division – the nerve-centre of Brexit contingency planning – the mood last week was as dark as it had been at any time in the past six months. Opinion polls showed Leave had a solid lead, the Remain campaign was struggling and the feedback from Government Ministers visiting Britain to rally the Irish vote was mixed.

“They found that their interactions were positive and people were open to what they said,” one official says. “But when they chatted to members of the Irish community, they were taken aback by the scale of Eurosceptic sentiment.” The trend was most striking among older Irish emigrants.

“For the Irish emigrant who has been in Liverpool since the 1960s, their default settings are very much like the default settings of their English neighbour,” says another official. All of these factors left Government insiders with “a sense of foreboding that this was going the wrong way,” the same official adds.

Yet the days before polling brought renewed hope. Remain rallied. The betting pointed to the status quo and the polls showed a majority for EU membership. When most Ministers and civil servants left the office and turned in for the night on Thursday, it looked like Remain had it.

Watching anxiously

Then constituencies began to declare. By 3am, officials had gathered around a bank of television screens in Government Buildings, anxiously watching as the map of Britain – at least that part of it south of the Scottish border – rapidly filled with blue. Briefing material had been prepared for two scenarios; in the early hours of the morning, staff got to work updating the “Out” files.

At 7am, with the result beyond doubt, a video-conference call was set up with ambassadors and other Irish officials in London, Belfast, Paris, Berlin, Brussels and Edinburgh. Early reaction was coming in from European capitals.

Calls were made to the National Treasury Management Agency and the Department of Finance. Cabinet was to be convened later in the morning. "The tightness of the polls meant it was always treated as a live possibility that it would happen. But we fervently hoped it wouldn't," says the official.

The Government’s contingency work, published yesterday, outlines some potential implications of Brexit in different sectors of the Irish economy, from trade and tourism to research and innovation. It also raises possible headaches for Government departments, and suggests potential windfalls, such as foreign direct investment. Insiders call it a “framework” rather than a “plan” because nobody knows exactly what Brexit will look like.

Contingency plans

“What we know is that the

United Kingdom

will be leaving the

European Union

. But what arrangements will follow have yet to be negotiated. You can’t produce detailed contingency plans for something that you don’t know the final shape of. The most you can do is to identify the issues that will arise,” said a senior figure.

The Government’s concerns were well flagged. It fears that any move to reimpose Border controls could destabilise the North and jeopardise the fragile peace. Ireland’s massive trade with the UK leaves it particularly exposed to a British withdrawal, while there are also major concerns about energy and the loss of a close ally, on issues such as taxation and competition, in the EU system.

The implications for the North were preoccupying senior officials on Friday. Contacts were made with parties in Belfast on Friday and the issue was discussed in a phone call between Taoiseach Enda Kenny and David Cameron, his British counterpart.

A long process of negotiation – one several officials believe could take a decade – will be required to determine exactly what Brexit means.

The Government will have to strike a delicate balance between working towards an accommodation for the UK that will safeguard Ireland’s interests while making clear that Dublin’s place is at the heart of the EU and ensuring London doesn’t get a deal that would risk rewarding it for leaving.

On some questions, including that of the Border, the interests of every player – Dublin, London, Belfast and Brussels – will converge. “We would ultimately like to negotiate some kind of arrangement that doesn’t disturb the status quo of, effectively, an invisible border,” says an official

“That’s in the interest of all three administrations, in Dublin, London and Belfast. But it’s not something we can determine on our own. That can only be done as part of the wider UK-EU negotiation.”

Amid the uncertainty, one point is clear. Brexit is era-defining. How it takes shape will be the major issue for Ireland in the coming decade.