The EU isn't good for the Irish. Why do they love it so much?

There have been some predictions that economic growth in Ireland this year might be “only” 3.7 per cent due to the disruption of Brexit. Last year it was a stonking 8.2 per cent.

In the late 1990s, the Irish Republic adopted an open economy attracting investors by offering low tax rates. It became known as the Celtic Tiger. The country was hit by the international recession a decade ago (for them the banking crisis was exacerbated by the constraints of being in the Euro). But has become decidedly tigerish again in recent years.

During the Conservative leadership contest, Jeremy Hunt proposed a cut in Corporation Tax in the UK to 12.5 per cent, the level in Ireland. Hunt suggested that the Irish route to increased prosperity was something we could learn from. The growth has its problems. Traffic jams are worse, some of the new office buildings are ugly, house prices are up. But overall, in Ireland as elsewhere, people would rather be rich than poor.

Given that context, it is curious that there is so much focus in Ireland on the risks of us leaving the EU, rather than on Ireland’s continued membership.

Already Ireland is a net contributor to the European Union’s budget of nearly three billion euros. That sum is likely to increase. But that is not the most important point. An ambitious, enterprising economy has the most to gain from being made to make its own trade deals around the world and decide on its own regulatory regime.

Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach, is a huge fan of the EU. But how will he respond to demands for ever more European integration including tax harmonisation? Ursula von der Leyen will soon become the new President of the European Commission. She favours a common corporate tax across the EU. Naturally, Ireland opposes this. So von der Leyen feels that to achieve “progress” the best thing would be to switch to merely a majority vote being required from member states for tax, foreign policy, climate, energy and social issues. Thus far, Ireland has had some protection from the power of veto.

In democratic terms, Ireland, as a smaller country, has even less say in the EU over the laws that are imposed than the UK does. It only has one per cent of the population of the EU. That gives them only nine seats in the European Parliament out of 751 – although in any case the laws come from the unelected Commission.

Fishermen in Ireland have suffered unfairly from the Common Fisheries Policy, just as their British counterparts have.

Emigration from Ireland gives that country a global role which makes it unfit to be constrained by Fortress Europe. Over 41 million Americans claim to have some Irish ancestry. There are large populations in South Africa, Australia and many other countries of those of Irish heritage.

So far as Brexit is concerned the various claims of the harm it will cause to Ireland are likely to prove false or greatly exaggerated. The role of the EU in the “peace process” that produced the Good Friday agreement was derisory. It follows that EU is not required for peace to be maintained. Both the UK and the Irish Government have said they will not impose a hard border.

Tariffs on farming produce could be a genuine problem. But, even with a no-deal scenario, the UK Government would be entitled to set them at zero – provided under WTO terms this applied to the rest of the world. This would be good news for British consumers, as well as Irish exporters, though British farmers would need to be compensated if the EU refused to reciprocate. An alternative approach from the UK would be more Trumpishly aggressive to put the EU under pressure to agree a free trade deal. Either way it is likely that free trade would resume soon.

Professor Dolores Cahill, has founded the Irish Freedom Party, which campaigns for Irexit. Ireland’s exit from the EU. But it has found little support thus far. An opinion poll in April found that only eight per cent of Irish people would vote to leave the EU. It found that support for EU membership in Ireland was the highest of any member state other than the Netherlands. This could change. Ireland has perhaps the most to lose from the ever greater shackles of the EU – and thus the most to gain from breaking free.