{"id":1025486,"date":"2026-06-14T05:41:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T05:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1025486\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T05:41:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T05:41:22","slug":"brexit-10-years-on-there-was-surprise-at-just-how-lackadaisical-the-british-seemed-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1025486\/","title":{"rendered":"Brexit, 10 years on: \u2018There was surprise at just how lackadaisical the British seemed\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Damian McGenity returned home after midnight from working on his Co Louth<\/a> farm as counting began in the United Kingdom\u2019s Brexit<\/a> referendum. <\/p>\n

Up to then, he remembers a decade on, he had paid little attention to the referendum, believing the campaign to stay in the European Union<\/a> would win.<\/p>\n

Exhausted, he made a cup of tea and switched on the television for early results: \u201cThen, the first result came in, Sunderland. I\u2019ll never forget it. I went to bed in disgust.\u201d<\/p>\n

For McGenity and a man soon to become a colleague, Fermanagh farmer John Sheridan, the hours that followed would shape much of the decade ahead.<\/p>\n

Both became leading figures in the highly successful Border Communities Against Brexit, which campaigned against the creation of a hard Border on the island of Ireland once the UK left the EU.<\/p>\n

In the years that followed, the issue consumed them, with McGenity telling tales of the relationships built with politicians such as Nancy Pelosi and Richard Neil in the US, or Guy Verhofstadt in Brussels.<\/p>\n

Retired diplomat Dan Mulhall was Ireland\u2019s ambassador to London in the years before and after Brexit, giving him a ringside seat into the attitudes that drove it and the post-referendum negotiations.<\/p>\n

\"BorderBorder Communities Against Brexit members John Sheridan and Damian McGenity. Photograph: Alan Betson\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

Despite no shortage of warnings, nobody paid attention to the complications Northern Ireland would cause for a clean break with Brussels: \u201cThere was just a complete unwillingness to believe that there was any issue,\u201d he remembers.<\/p>\n

Every prediction that Brexiteers made was quickly proven wrong, especially the belief that Ireland \u201cwould be abandoned by the others, once the negotiations got down to the end game\u201d.<\/p>\n

Following the vote, senior British officials went to every EU capital in search of one-to-one talks, but they were rebuffed as European leaders insisted that London had to negotiate with the EU as a whole.<\/p>\n

European solidarity was deemed \u201cmore important\u201d than securing an advantage \u201cfor German cars, or French wine, or Italian cheese\u201d, says Mulhall, who served in London for more than a year after the referendum.<\/p>\n

\"MichelMichel Barnier was the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator. Photograph: Alain Jocard\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Despite the reluctance of many to credit the political system, the roles played by Irish politicians and diplomats of the time is regarded elsewhere, if not always at home, as a masterclass in negotiations.<\/p>\n

From the off, the Irish side had clear targets \u2013 above all, avoiding a trade border on the island that would inevitably require infrastructure, and even more inevitably, protection.<\/p>\n

Though less often said, such a border was also anathema to Dublin as it would have led to Ireland falling into a second-class category of EU membership, with trade complications forcing opt-outs or exclusion.<\/p>\n

Dublin strove to ensure there was \u201cnot a cigarette paper\u201d between Ireland and EU negotiators led by Michel Barnier, and the Irish government was briefed \u201cmoment by moment\u201d on the talks with often poorly-prepared British counterparts.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Brexit \u2013 A Very British Civil War: Ghastly portrait of ruling classes having a larkOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Years on, those closely involved \u2013 often people used to dealing with a polished Whitehall machine \u2013 still remain puzzled by London\u2019s performance: \u201cThere was a lot of surprise at just how lackadaisical the British seemed to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe EU is a legal construct. It is a paper-driven organisation. You have to have a clear chain of causality between the treaties, regulations and directives to support what you\u2019re doing,\u201d says one former Irish diplomat.<\/p>\n

For many, the image that defines London\u2019s handling is one involving Brexit secretary David Davis and officials, minus a document or a file, sitting across from Barnier and his team with bundles of files.<\/p>\n

Former minister for foreign affairs Simon Coveney was one of those centrally involved in the negotiations \u2013 becoming a bete noire, alongside Leo Varadkar, for some unionists unhappy that Dublin was, as they saw it, \u201cthwarting Brexit\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"MichelMichel Barnier and his EU delegation with their briefing papers sit across from the UK\u2019s Brexit secretary David Davis and his team. Photograph: Reuters <\/p>\n

Nearly 10 years on, Coveney retains a respect for David Cameron\u2019s replacement as British prime minister, Theresa May, even if she made a series of errors when she took over in Downing Street.<\/p>\n

However, she triggered the two-year clock on the UK\u2019s withdrawal, which put London on the back foot in the negotiations, while also insisting on the hardest form of Brexit \u2013 outside the single market and the customs union.<\/p>\n

Another former Irish diplomat says: \u201cShe was an honourable person, but not the most adept politician. Maybe a bit like Keir Starmer, in a different way. She couldn\u2019t communicate politically. Not just publicly, but in her private communications, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

May ended her premiership \u201con keeping her word to Ireland and to the EU,\u201d Coveney says, \u201cunlike others who followed her who wanted a Brexit outcome linked more to trying to maintain a majority in the Conservative Party\u201d. <\/p>\n

For which one can read Boris Johnson, if Coveney does not. If there is one constant in scores of Brexit interviews, it is the loathing that exists for the tousled-haired politician \u2013 \u201ca man without honour,\u201d says one who dealt closely with him.<\/p>\n

The departure of the UK has not brought about the chaos feared in the early hours of June 24th, 2016, but there are concerns that seismic change in Westminster\u2019s politics could bring new challenges.<\/p>\n

John Sheridan lost friends among Protestant neighbours over his stand, but a decade on he is confident that he has been proven right and that those same people know they were not.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, a majority of unionists have not realised \u201cthat they were lied to, because that would first of all accept that they were conned\u201d by the false promises of Johnson, Sheridan says.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0UK government is still paying the cost of BrexitOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

McGenity has no desire to return to campaigning: \u201cI don\u2019t ever want to do that again. I don\u2019t know where I got the time, but I certainly wouldn\u2019t have the time now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

However, if Reform wins the next Westminster election and seeks to deliver a \u201cproper\u201d Brexit, McGenity will campaign again \u2013 but not to block or ameliorate the actions of Brexiteers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will only be one campaign, and that will be for the united Ireland. We\u2019re not going to go back over this shit again, excuse my language, looking for protocols, or special exemptions,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Damian McGenity returned home after midnight from working on his Co Louth farm as counting began in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1025487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,13515,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15,37368],"class_list":["post-1025486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brexit","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-common-ground","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-great-britain","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-weekendreview"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116746866349219562","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1025487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}