Mobilising the Irish vote on Brexit
Brexit will not only hurt Britain but Ireland too
When a state joins the EU, we get to vote. An accession treaty must be endorsed by every member state. When we joined the then EEC with Britain, back in 1973, the six original members had voted to let us both in a decade after Gen Charles de Gaulle, in vetoing British membership, had also put paid to Ireland’s. Accession would affect every member individually and change the shape and dynamics of the EEC – of course each member state would have a say.
Withdrawal is another matter. One entirely for the state concerned, even though those left behind, and the EU, will be affected – in Brexit’s case, the impact on Ireland will be dramatic. We may not have a vote but our Government would be remiss in the extreme if it did not robustly make our case to our friends and cousins in Britain, and to the 120,000 British voters living in Ireland, that we value the closeness of our long relationship, personally, politically, economically, culturally, and their engagement in the EU . . . and that if they reciprocate such sentiments, they should not cast themselves adrift from the EU.