Alastair Campbell: Varadkar right to challenge Brextremists

Whatever views one may hold of former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, one of the architects of Brexit, it is hard not to have a grudging respect for his limitless chutzpah.

Here is a man whose name keeps appearing in reports pointing to something of a sinister conspiracy around the funding and running of the Leave campaign; a conspiracy that would appear to involve and benefit figures as varied as the pro-Brexit US president Donald Trump, the pro-Brexit moneyman Arron Banks, and the pro-Brexit Russian president Vladimir Putin with his army of fake news manufacturers and twitter bots.

Despite the waves of the scandal beginning to lap around his ankles, Farage had the gall to say this about me: “Encouraging a foreign power to damage our interests. Years ago that would have been called treachery.”

The foreign power in question was Ireland. Farage’s tweet was a response to mine, about Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s gentle statement of the very obvious, that it sometimes felt like the UK government had not thought through the consequences of Brexit. You may judge for yourself whether my tweet merited the splenetic faux fury of Mr Farage in his. “Leo Varadkar far too kind in saying the UK government hasn’t thought Brexit through. They haven’t thought full stop. Play hardball Leo!!”

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Daniel Hannan, the self-styled “brain of Brexit” was as outraged as Farage. “Opposing Brexit is fair enough. It’s cheering for the other side that grates.” What grates with me is people claiming a monopoly on patriotism while doing fundamental damage to the country to which they pledge their allegiance.

Collateral damage

“The other side,” to these Brextremists, is anyone who dares to question their hard-right, hard-Brexit view, whether that be a proud Remainiac Brit like me, or a taoiseach worried that his own country’s future prosperity and security will be Brexit’s collateral damage.

For my part, anything I say or do about Brexit flows not from any love of the EU, but from a love of Britain, and a desire to stop the country opting for decline and irrelevance, because of one moment in the democratic process, June 23rd, 2016, and one serially incompetent government in charge of that process since.

But yes, I also feel a strong attachment to Ireland, not least because of the time and energy expended by the Tony Blair team that worked with Bertie Ahern and many others to deliver the Belfast Agreement and all that followed.

One of the many scandals of the wretched EU referendum campaign was the extent to which the potential impact on the peace process, and on Ireland North and South, was just ignored, waved away by wishful thinking. Now that the Brexit process has begun, the Irish Government has not just a right but an absolute duty to stop it from harming their own country.

As former taoiseach John Bruton has observed, it is quite something that the Belfast Agreement is being taken more seriously by French, Italian and German politicians than it is by British ones.

To listen to the Brextremists, it is as though having created this mayhem, they now expect others to have the ideas to deal with the consequences. “It’s your border, Leo, you sort it,” would appear to define their approach. Varadkar is perfectly within his rights to say “This is your Brexit – you sort it.”

Scandalous coalition

It may well be that it is unsortable. When I debated with Farage on his LBC radio show, he said the Border issue was perfectly simple, because the two countries had always traded freely with each other. But that is because we have always been in or out together. If Brexit goes ahead, Ireland will be in, we will be out, and the dynamic becomes very complicated indeed, the scandalous coalition between the Tories and the DUP adding to the complications.

It is remarkable that 18 months on, the great brains of Brexit have made zero progress in answering the very basic question about how you can have a frictionless border between North and South Ireland, while stopping freedom of movement from the EU, of which Ireland will continue to be a full member.

It is remarkable too that these Brextremists no longer even bother to make the case that Brexit will be good for Britain, just that we have to deliver it because people voted for it. That suggests to me that they are losing the argument, and know it. As does the Brextremist Lie Machine cartel of the Mail, Telegraph, Sun and Express, turning on anyone opposed to this madness as a mutineer or saboteur. As does Farage suggesting I am a traitor for speaking up for Ireland and speaking out against the damage Brexit will do to peace in Northern Ireland which, let me remind him, is part of the UK.

Charge of treachery

To his charge of treachery, there is a good one word response – Russia. Farage is a long-term admirer of Vladimir Putin, a fondness he first expressed loudly in an interview I did with him for GQ three years ago. It is becoming clear there needs to be a proper investigation into the role of Russian money and propaganda efforts in the Brexit campaign.

To return to his tweet – “Encouraging a foreign power to damage our interests. Years ago that would have been called treachery.” Putin didn’t need any encouragement to help wrest the UK out of the EU, given his loathing of any international body that might have the desire or the clout to hold him to account. But having the help of Farage, Banks, Hannan, Johnson, Gove, Fox, Davis et al certainly came in handy.

One thing I know – if we are having a patriotic pissing match, I would put my support for Ireland ahead of his and his fellow Brextremists’ love-in with Putin’s Russia any day of the week.

Alastair Campbell is editor-at-large of The New European