Leo Varadkar, who resigned yesterday, has certainly earned his place in the history of Anglo-Irish relations as one of the most consequential taoiseachs of all time. His role in Anglo-Irish relations was defined by Brexit, and Ireland’s remarkable role in shaping its outcome. The marked contrast with John Bruton – a previous Fine Gael taoiseach of the 1990s, who died last month – could not be greater. Bruton was also a militant Europhile, but he rarely sought to fan the flames of Anglophobia in the Irish Republic. Varadkar, by contrast, sought to ride that tiger relentlessly.

The UK caved to the EU/Irish demands. Dublin could hardly believe it

Varadkar became taoiseach just as the Brexit negotiations began, in June 2017. The basic principles that would guide the EU in those negotiations had been set out under his predecessor, Enda Kenny – including ‘no hard border on the island of Ireland’ – but how they would be applied in practice were all to play for, and as has now been proved, would make all the difference to its acceptability and workability. Kenny had taken a far more cooperative approach than his successor would.

Varadkar’s first venture onto the Brexit stage was to back up Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney’s demands for special status for Northern Ireland and no customs checks, following an Irish parliamentary report on Brexit. Varadkar insisted that the Republic would not come up with solutions for a problem created by the UK and that there could be no economic border on the island of Ireland.

The summer saw a British pushback on Northern Ireland, not least its first attempt to counter Ireland’s interpretation of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement. The EU felled it with complete rejection of the associated customs proposals. This was followed up by a fresh set of Guiding Principles for a solution to the challenges of Brexit on the island of Ireland, based on an information note from Dublin that stressed the ongoing peace process, the role of the two governments and that of the EU. Like a scene from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the United States had been removed from this history and been replaced with the EU, and concepts such as the ‘all-island economy’ pushed to the fore. It is a far cry from David Trimble’s recollection of the 1998 Agreement of the EU representatives flying in, having their photos taken, and then flying out again.

Recasting the EU in a central role in the ‘peace process’ was a masterstroke. It was everything they thought they were and wanted to be – as Macron would subsequently say, the EU is, before all else, a peace project. It was a favour the European Commission would return in spades. After this, it was incredibly hard for the UK to sober the EU up with a more accurate and balanced understanding of the Belfast Agreement, the nature of Northern Ireland and its primary relationship with the rest of the UK. Ending a border on the island of Ireland had become synonymous with the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement and the peace process.

Thus, Ireland’s most important negotiating objective was realised: ensuring that its own place in the European Single Market was secured. After all, this was the key factor in amplifying an economic model based on tax avoidance. Instead of being on the edge of Europe, Ireland had become part of the bridge connecting the US (with its large and hugely influential Irish diaspora) with Europe. Ireland, the first landfall in Europe for American business, had been made hugely attractive by the creation of a global Irish tax haven – an arrangement that is just about tolerated by Brussels. To protect this very profitable arrangement, Varadkar had to shift the problem back to London.

It was not difficult. London was desperate for a trade deal with the UK and the EU had most of the cards. By the autumn of 2017, Varadkar had achieved the position of broker for any deal for the UK’s departure from the EU. Donald Tusk, meeting the taoiseach in Dublin the week before the terms of the deal on Northern Ireland were finally agreed said:

‘Let me say very clearly: if the UK’s offer is unacceptable for Ireland, it will also be unacceptable for the EU. I realise that for some British politicians this may be hard to understand. But such is the logic behind the fact that Ireland is an EU member while the UK is leaving. This is why the key to the UK’s future lies —in some ways — in Dublin, at least as long as Brexit negotiations continue’.

A week later, the UK caved to the EU/Irish demands. Dublin could hardly believe it. It was an extraordinary triumph, but key officials with rather more experience than the taoiseach were worried they had overreached. Varadkar never seems to have shared this concern. At the October 2018 European Council (Art 50) meeting that reviewed progress in the negotiations, Varadkar posed with a 1972 copy of the Irish Times covering an IRA attack on a customs post on the North-South border which killed nine people. A month later, Theresa May signed the Withdrawal Agreement, including the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The story of the following six years was one of pushback by the UK. The failure of an EU-UK deal to pass Parliament, a renegotiation that sought to address profound constitutional issues in the Protocol, the failure of the Protocol to work in practice and the UK’s ability to shape implementation – all these began the process of questioning the merits of the Protocol and thus Varadkar’s standing.

Varadkar’s refusal to engage with the UK reflect a wider failure to solve problems south of the border

The EU had more and more to face the fact that the Irish-informed solution of 2017 – the Northern Ireland Protocol – lacked a grounding in the realities of Northern Ireland’s economic, cultural and political integration in the UK. When the problem came finally to be settled it bore little trace of Irish influence. The Windsor Framework bears no hint of Irish input, its name alone is a refutation to any suggestion of that. The most recent deal that led to the restoration of Stormont, ‘Safeguarding the Union’, is a further rebuff to the overreach of Dublin, in which its concerns have been rejected and whose absence from creating a solution to the political crisis in Northern Ireland is noteworthy.

Instigation of an inter-state action against the UK over the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 represented another blow to UK-Irish relations – though it helped solidify Unionist rapprochement with London in the run up to the restoration of Stormont. It was his only, yet unintended, contribution to resolving a crisis he had helped create. This action was taken despite the Republic ceasing to investigate cases relating to Troubles-related murders itself.

Varadkar’s refusal to engage with the UK to solve problems on the border reflect a wider failure to solve problems south of the border. In the 2020 general election, his party lost 15 seats and had its worst result since 1948. He shared power with Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin, serving as his deputy before returning to the premiership in 2022.

Varadkar was more abrasively nationalist than Micheál Martin whose ‘Shared Island’ initiative won respect from Unionists who were generally cool or hostile to Varadkar. He mentioned but did not specify in his resignation speech policy failures, but most commentators agree the biggest were the Republic’s chronic housing shortage, its creaking health service and failure to address popular discontent on immigration.

Though Varadkar did succeed in protecting Ireland’s core corporate and political interests throughout the Brexit negotiations, he did so by shifting the costs onto the UK and destabilising Northern Ireland, leaving the UK essentially on its own to save the Belfast Agreement. It is hard therefore to see him in the mould of a modernising statesman like John Bruton.