I am very pleased to be guest-editing Progress on this St Patrick’s Day at what is a vital time for both Britain and Ireland with the referendum on our membership of the European Union in just a few weeks’ time.
Relations between Britain and Ireland have never been stronger since the two countries joined the European Union 40 years ago. Today the economic relationship can be seen in the simple fact that Britain exports more to Ireland that it does to India, Brazil and China. But this is also a vote about values.
Both Britain and Ireland have achieved so much by being confident, outward-looking countries, ready to face the future, working in partnership with each other and across the European Union.
The Labour Party Irish Society exists to ensure our shared heritage is a source of strength as we build on the ties that bind us still. We work to ensure those links remain strong and that support is mobilised at election time. Never has this been more important that to mobilise the Irish diaspora in Britain for this June’s vote.
Indeed earlier this week Peter Mandelson argued in a speech to the British Irish Chamber of Commerce that our cultural, economic and familial ties would of course not be severed, but they would be impacted, which ‘underlines the seismic nature of this decision, but the scale of the risk if we leap the wrong way.’
The former Northern Ireland secretary and EU trade commissioner knows of what he speaks when he says,
the EU has been, as it is elsewhere in the world, an enabler of peace in Northern Ireland and a fundamentally stabilising presence in Ireland’s recent history.
It was instrumental in facilitating constructive contact and trust-building between the Irish and British governments when finding a political settlement. Indeed, close cooperation between North and South as partners in the European Union is explicitly referenced in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
This St Patrick’s Day is sadly a less enjoyable one for our comrades in the Irish Labour party who are rebuilding after a brutal general election campaign that saw their numbers in parliament cut to less than a quarter.
Having been the junior coalition partner for the previous four years with the centre-right Fine Gael, voters punished Labour for the tough choices the government made. Despite Labour having success to point to in both economic and social policy, not least the historic marriage equality referendum, it was not enough to keep them in office as voters looked for alternatives outside of the traditional parties.
It remains to be seen what government will be formed in Ireland and it is possible that Irish voters will be heading to the polls again soon.
In the meantime, all eyes will be on the votes cast here in Britain to ensure that the UK and Ireland remain together in the European Union, building on those bonds of family and friendship as partners for security, prosperity and opportunity now and for the future.
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
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Matthew Doyle is chair of the Labour Party Irish Society. He tweets @doylematthew
Join Labour Party Irish Society here
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