We live in an era of liberal politicos reinventing themselves through backroom foundations and institutes. The Clintons mastered the trade in the late 90s only to be outdone recently by Tony Blair as his eponymous foundation became the rallying point for disgruntled policymakers in an era of rising populism.
Rumoured to be wanting to find a life for himself beyond domestic politics in this world of international lobbying is former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar who opted against running again in Dublin West following his shock resignation from office last year after failing to win a single election for the blueshirts and suffering a gruelling defeat in a recent referendum on family and care.
General debauchery and lack of charisma also played significant roles in his downfall.
Originally thought to be pursuing a Silicon Valley transition a la George Osbone due to his strategic placement at the Department of Enterprise, signs now point to Varadkar potentially entering the civil society space.
Indeed, with Silicon Valley falling out of favour with the great and the good given the free speech about-face of its top dogs, the revolving door between European politicos and Bay Side tech gurus may disintegrate faster than a multi-million dollar mansion in the Pacific Palisades.
While as of yet unconfirmed, his goal surprisingly enough for a South Dublin Blueshirt is the completion of the work of Wolfe Tone in an apparent think tank catering to preparing for eventual reunification.
Brexit and the process of going toe to toe with a belligerent Tory party has altered the DNA of many Fine Gaelers on the matter underpinning the apparent inevitability of the end of partition and the need to keep the issue out of Sinn Féin’s ownership especially as the republicans cement their holdings north of the border.
Changing political and cultural tides alone are stressing the need for a united Ireland of some description with a Starmer government, European Commission as well as a still powerful Irish American lobby aligning over the issue.
Even NATO strategic planners, traditionally preferring a friend in Ulster in the form of the Stormont statelet are now open to the idea, preferring Ireland as one takes its place in the Atlantic Alliance especially as the North Atlantic heats up in the fight against Russia and eventually even China.
The only dud variable in the United Ireland process outside of the complex issue of a border poll is the question of Dublin’s response to reunification.
Can a statelet with a dilapidated security service grapple 10k loyalist paramilitaries without becoming a UK protectorate entirely?
Are the republican truisms of Irish society able to navigate the tricky politics of a shared island where a loyalist veto could be the swing vote in Leinster House?
One imagines Varadkar’s think tank should it materialise will mimic something like Germany’s Marshall Foundation to begin the nitty gritty planning for the process that the Irish political process is allergic to.
From policing integration to hammering out a shared all-island asylum platform, there are many issues where integration is just around the corner, potentially with the reunification issue and how it’s implemented on a relatively blank slate.
Similar to the peace process should Ireland be reunited it will be likely done with the triple approval of London, Brussels, and most importantly Washington as much as voters in Derry or Belfast and out of compromise rather than a single ideological vision.
For progressives like Varadkar, it affords an ideal opportunity for a constitutional year zero moment for Ireland against populism and the nationalism of orange and green on both sides of the divide and to ensure liberal hegemony for the next century if done correctly.
For Varadkar, a United Ireland entails not merely a correction of history but an entirely new polity based on modern post-war abstractions of multiculturalism and deracination that go beyond uniting disparate Christian communities with antagonistic histories.
In the past, he has decried Sinn Féin’s nationalism as “crude” and revanchist: one of ‘narrowness protectionist, anglophobic, eurosceptic and separatist’ underpinnings.
Instead, he has outlined a unified island not based on an “annexation” of the North but on a “new constitution and one that reflects the diversity of a bi-national or multi-national state in which almost a million people are British… like the new South Africa, a rainbow nation, not just of orange and green”.
An end game could be forming in the unity question but the solution to it is likely going to sidestep both republicans and unionists and global tectonics move against partition.
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