Brexit is still in the headlines.
We’ve reported on the UK’s Brexit Secretary, David Davis, before when he seemed to be under the impression that Ireland is part of the UK.
Now, while in that moment he showed that he didn’t have a grasp of the simple geography of Ireland, or hadn’t paid attention in any of his history classes, he’s now shown once again that he is ignorant of Irish politics.
In a report in The Times, Davis said that that the lack of progress on the Irish border is due to a “change of government in Dublin” and accused the Irish government of allowing Sinn Féin to influence the country’s hardline stance on Brexit.
Speaking at a conference in London, Davis said that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had allowed republican sentiment to play a political role in Ireland’s stance and subsequent negotiations on the Irish border.
He said that the change in government last June had unexpectedly hardened Ireland’s stance in negotiations.
He said: “On the other side we had a change of government, south of the border, and with quite a strong influence from Sinn Fein – and that had an impact too in terms of the approach. Understandable – I don’t blame them for that.
“They’ve been playing a strong political role which they haven’t done historically that I hadn’t foreseen.”
But some would say that membership of the EU has never been a republican issue and that in 2018 every major political party in Ireland holds basically the same stance in favour of EU membership.
In fact, historically, it could be argued that Sinn Féin have been among the most eurosceptic of all the major political parties in Ireland.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
