Britain balks at Ireland’s £7bn medicine

Europe...my arse 

News that the UK will be ponying up £7bn (€8.2bn) as part of the Irish bailout was greeted with hissy-fits from the Euro-sceptic rumps of all the big three parties in Parliament today. But then Britain never could get its story straight when it comes to either Ireland or Europe.

Since joining the then EEC with Ireland and Denmark in 1973, the Great British Public has wavered between ambivalent scepticism and xenophobic hostility on the question of its involvement with its European neighbours.

The British (English) press has never tired of whipping up Europhobia. From the heady days of ‘Up yours Delors’ to ‘Metric Martyrs’ and ‘non-bendy bananas’. Indeed, the man on the Clapham Omnibus could be forgiven for thinking that Europe was solely devised to erode the British way of life.

Chancellor Osborne (himself apparently an heir to an Irish Baronetcy) has played the bailout as a helping hand to a friend in need.

Very noble. But let’s take a closer look. The Irish might always have moaned about how much of our trade is done with the UK but that’s a story that cuts both ways and while things were good in Ireland, Britain was riding the pig’s back (if you’ll forgive the image).

But today, even in London’s Evening Standard comes the dawning realisation that British fortunes are inextricably linked to Ireland’s fate.  Our economies (while in different orders of magnitude) are not dissimilar in some crucial fundamentals; an over-reliance on financial services and a dangerous yen for dabbling in property being the most cogent commonalities.

Ireland is by far the biggest destination for UK trade so an Irish implosion is not in the interests of the British (however much it might appeal to their over-developed sense of Schadenfreude).

In fact, sustained economic turbulence in Ireland could potentially cause a systemic overflow to Blighty.

Neverthless, the mood among the public is probably less forgiving and not just among perenially disgruntled white van drivers or Mail-reading cabbies either.


The Rusty Wire Service can certainly confirm that at least one London university law professor this evening felt confident enough to tell ‘Irish’ jokes to an appreciative audience of largely white English and upper middle class students. It's good to know that some things never change....especially among the opinion-forming elite.