The Government is running scared of holding a referendum on Neutrality leading to formal participation in Nato. They clothe this fear in disingenous language, evasion and deflection. They are pushing back on the right of the people to reflect and engage – to debate and be consulted on – war and all that means, now and across generations.
The current militarization of our Constitution comes in two forms. The first is the deepening of Ireland’s engagement in the EU’s rush to further develop a European Army – from R+D and weaponry to military manpower. It’s been a continual process since the Dail voted, hurriedly, to vote on joining PESCO in December 2017.
The second course would be to abandon Neutrality and join NATO.
Both forms are, of course, closely linked. They are grounded in the provisions of Lisbon Treaty which Irish voters decisively rejected first time around.
Following panic across the establishment, the EU Council gave certain guarantees that the treaty could not affect Ireland’s traditional policy of neutrality because there was little doubt that the issue of neutrality was a factor in the rejection of the treaty. But we were plamased as usual and taken down by ‘Solomn’ Binding’ assurances from Europe about our Neutrality.
Lisbon 2 was duly passed. But it was a scare for the establishment, and for the EU, as Bruce Arnold, one of the great Irish Journalists of the last fifty years, said at the time. The views of the Irish people were very nearly respected. Nearly, but not quite.
In December 2017, the Government, under Fine Gael but with the support of Fianna Fail, steamrolled through the Permanent Structured Cooperation Arrangements (PESCO) Act, embedding the Irish Defence Forces in the EU’s nascent and rapidly expanding Army. Many TDs (the vote was 75 to 42) pointed out that there was very little debate. There was a deadline to be met, from Europe Still, never mind eh, we were in. The concerns that many expressed at the time of Lisbon were vindicated.
Now, the issue of participating in Nato, setting aside Ireland’s policy of Neutrality – the one formally endorsed and protected under Lisbon 2 – is on the table.
In Strasbourg recently, the Taoiseach is reported as saying:“We don’t need a referendum to join Nato. That’s a policy decision of government.”
Many voters, almost certainly a significant majority, would beg to disagree. So, too, would enough constitutional experts to make a Supreme Court challange very uncomfortable for the Government’s sleight of hand on issues of life and death.
But there should be a referendum. This is about aiding and abetting war declared by other parties vs. sustained and principled advocacy against militarism and support for peace and humanitarian assistance.
If Irish Neutrality is, as some have asserted, a hollow thing, it is because successive governments have made it so. It is better than that. The people’s right to be heard on the issue should not be deflected by blandishments or bullshit this time round.
Irish governments are discomforted by disappointing “our European Partners”. The EU don’t like referendums, at least those that are not choreographed to produce the ‘right’ result.
Brussels certainly would not like a referendum on neutrality encompassing Irelands membership of Nato. We are coming along nicely, contributing massively to a militarized Europe. A proposal to allow Irish voters to express their views on neutrality including joining NATO, would burn up the wires to our Embassies around Europe and in Washington. But that should not deter us from critiquing the madness of war in Europe – of all places -which was re-deemed by Peace building after World War 2.
What the great American economist and social scientist JK Galbraith memorably called the ‘Conventional Wisdom’ in Ireland is now indicative of a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. It reflects our obsequious deference to those who like to think they know what is in our best interests.
They pushed through Lisbon 2 and they pushed through PESCO. They will certainly attempt to slip the abandonment of Neutrality in favor of joining Nato through, on some pretext or other, possibly a Citizens Assembly. There is unlikely to the ” an open and factual debate ” which the present Taoiseach called for in campaigning to reverse Lisbon 1.
It has long seemed clear that the mainstream FG/FF ‘Brand’ has neither regard for the principle of Irish neutrality, and how it might be deepened, nor respect for those who affirm neutrality and believe it is an important witness to peace, in an unstable world, where there is now a clear and present threat of ‘tactical nuclear’ weapons being deployed in Europe.
Ireland is all too amenable to being led by the nose: a serious-seeming editorial or Op Ed, a carefully strategised media psych-op campaign, a promise of “more jobs” and “greater influence” – all will be deployed to attempt to impel the population to abandon Neutrality and join Nato.
It cannot be overempathised that post- war Europe was never about armies, it was about peace building. It’s architects, Adenauer and Schumann, were unambiguously Christian. That was their moral and political vision for Europe. In this context, its worth recalling Article 29 of our Constitution which begins:
” Ireland affirms its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality…”
We are now teethering on a red line. Think about it. This appalling war triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and rooted in the post cold war geo-political strategies, has moved from sparring and sabre rattling to a proxy war, to a shooting war, escalating to a very real prospect of the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
What’s to stop it there? What is there in narrative so far to make us believe it actually will stop there? We could at least look to the consequences of the invasion of Iraq which was predicated on a lie, which continue to resonate to this day . I remember back in the day when I was an undergraduate in economics, a line from an Institute of Strategic Studies paper on the soldier and strategist Basil Liddle Hart: “In war there are no winners, only common losers”.
Some insights, for whatever reason, stay with you through your life – I even remember where I was in the Library when I read it.
Another neutral country, Switzerland, recently came under enormous pressure to abandon its neutrality and to provide and facilitate the provision of arms to the European theatre of war.The pressure was intense.But what is politics and diplomacy about if not courage in the face of – one way or another – pressure?
Swiss President Alain Berset emphatically rejected this pressure insisting: ” [the Governments] position is clear. It also corresponds to my personal position. Swiss weapons must not be used in wars.”
Switzerland’s stance is based on The Hague Agreement principles which include “no participation in wars; international cooperation but no membership in any military alliance; no provision of troops or weapons to warring parties and no granting of transition rights.”
None of this has stopped Switzerland from playing a pivotal role in peace – building through mediation and humanitarian assistance. It seems likely that Switzerland may hold a referendum later this year on the issue of neutrality. They actually believe in consulting their people.
Pressure should not stop Ireland consulting the Irish people on neutrality. Increasingly, countries while enormously supportive of the people of Ukraine, are questioning the moral and and geo political value of a war that has displaced millions of Ukranians and filled Croke Park four times over with dead Ukrainian and Russian soldiers. And it has wrecked the European and global economy.
This is not appeasement. Peace negotiations, and not more and more weapons, should be the overriding priority for Europe. If the present trajectory continues this spring, they will need many Croke Parks to house the dead.
Switzerland, like Ireland, is a small country. But who would say that its neutrality counts for nothing? Ireland may be an appendage of Europe – and increasingly, but not yet formally, of Nato. Still, Christianity – the same Christianity that animated reconciliation and the rebuilding of Europe – is in our DNA, as it once was in Europe’s. Peace, not war and least of all, nuclear warfare, is at the heart of Christianity’s offered redemption from the threat of annihilation. Otherwise, “we never thought it would come to this” may be our epitaph.
Ireland’s Foreign Policy needs to be rethought. Consulting the people on preserving, affirming and investing in neutrality, is a necessary starting place. If a Government, any Government, is afraid to hold a referendum – whatever the outcome – it tells you everything you need to know.