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Inaugural Ambassadorial Lecture at Dublin City University given by His Excellency Dominick Chilcott, the British Ambassador to Ireland

Thank you very much for that generous introduction. Lord Mayor, President of DCU, chers colleagues, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good evening. It is an honour to be asked by the Lord Mayor and the President of DCU to give this inaugural ambassadorial lecture. We should all congratulate Dublin City Council and DCU for taking the initiative to establish what will doubtless become a regular part of Dublin’s diplomatic calendar. Dublin is a highly successful city. It is host to many of the state’s most important institutions. It sits at the centre of a very lively regional economy, which is growing faster than China’s these days. It boasts great universities and an outstanding cultural hinterland; a great passion for literature and the theatre; wonderful music in its splendid concert halls; outstanding sport - and much more. Dublin is a terrific posting, particularly for a British ambassador, although to be honest not many Brits would have joined the diplomatic service to serve in Ireland. We more often harbour romantic ideas of living in exotic countries in tropical climes - I know I did. But actually, the move from London to Dublin is about as good as it gets. This place is a hidden gem. At the time of the formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, Dublin was the second most populous city in the union. When King George the Vth came here in 1911, the editor of the Irish Times claimed that Dublin was the second city of the British Empire. With its port and airport connecting people and goods to the outside world, it is no surprise that modern day Dublin remains an outward looking city, enriched by the free flow of trade, culture and ideas. The Globalization and World Cities Research Network lists Dublin as a global city with an Alpha rating, placing it among the top 30 cities in the world.

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I see this lecture, which demonstrates the openness of our hosts to the views of representatives of other countries, as further evidence of Dublin’s self confidently asserting itself in our globalised, networked world. Having said that, Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s good that Dublin City Council and DCU have not been put off by the reputation that some diplomats have for mendacity. This theme of diplomats practising the dark arts of deception has been elaborated upon by many commentators. The US writer, Oliver Herford, sometimes called the American Oscar Wilde, once quipped that: ‘diplomacy is lying in state’. Perhaps our tarnished professional image - for the British at least - is due to a certain Henry Wooton, an English diplomat of the early 17th century who coined the infamous epigram that: “a diplomat is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country”. My colleagues may see things differently. But we ambassadors are all paid to advocate our government’s line - whatever its merits. Since my country has earned the sobriquet ‘Perfidious Albion’ the Foreign and Commonwealth Office may be especially at fault. In case you think the term – Perfidious Albion - has fallen out of use, please recall the Irish adaptation of the folk song, Foggy Dew, about the Easter Rising, which contains the line: “Oh the night fell black and the rifles’ crack made perfidious Albion reel”. A century on, this is a very significant year to invite a British ambassador, reeling or otherwise, to speak at such a prestigious occasion. The Easter Rising commemorations have been spectacular. The parade on Sunday was the largest such event in the history of the state. But all this Easter weekend’s events – outside the GPO, in Kilmainham Gaol, at Glasnevin cemetery, at Dublin Castle, in Iveagh House and on the streets of the city - have rightly made the county proud of itself. The Minister for the Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Mrs Heather Humphreys, and her team of officials deserve enormous credit for staging such a comprehensive programme of events, which include something for everyone, to remember the Rising.

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The foreword to the programme of state events to commemorate the centenary of 1916 says: “There are some moments in history when a seed is sown and the old order changes forever. Easter 1916 was such a moment and from the very early days of this state, it has been the moment we have chosen to commemorate as marking the birth of our sovereign nation”. It was a privilege to stand in a place of honour, side by side with senior members of the Irish establishment, in front of the GPO on Sunday, commemorating Ireland’s road to independence and celebrating the achievements of the Republic. If Patrick Pearse is looking down at us this evening, he might well be surprised that this lecture isn’t being given by some other country’s ambassador. But I hope he would nonetheless be delighted by the mutual respect that the UK and Ireland show to one another nowadays, and by the friendship and cooperation that characterise our relations. We have come a long way. In speaking about the strengths of British-Irish relations, the title of this lecture, I don’t want to gloss over the 800 years of oppression which no Irishman forgets and no Englishman remembers. HM The Queen, at Dublin Castle, during her state visit in 2011, certainly wasn’t wearing rose tinted spectacles when she looked back at the past. As she said: “Of course, the relationship has not always been straightforward; nor has the record over the centuries been entirely benign. It is a sad and regrettable reality that through history our islands have experienced more than their fair share of heartache, turbulence and loss.

To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.”

Let me also quote from President Higgins’ speech at Windsor Castle, three years later. “Ireland and Britain” he said, “live in both the shadow and the shelter of one another, and so it has been since the dawn of history.”

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So how have we emerged from the shadows, from the heartache, turbulence and loss? Why are things so much better these days?

There are a number of reasons.

Let’s start with the people. Of course, it helps that, even in troubled times, the people to people links between the two countries have stayed strong. There has been migration in both directions across the Irish Sea for centuries, going as far back as St Patrick, who was born in Wales, and even earlier.

More recently, in the decades after the Second World War many thousands of Irish people came to Britain looking for work. They often married the locals and settled down.

We reckon there are about 500,000 Irish nationals living in Great Britain today. The latest waves of Irish migrants to Britain tend to be highly educated, professional people. In fact, these people probably don’t even think of themselves as emigrants: it’s so simple to hop back home for the weekend.

Equally impressively, as a result of this migration over the generations, we estimate that as many as 5 million people living in Great Britain have or had an Irish grandparent. Since that qualifies them for an Irish passport, it means that there are more potential Irish passport holders on the other side of the Irish Sea than there are in the Republic. There are also over 60,000 Irish directors in UK boardrooms, according to the Foreign Directors report by the communications agency, Eulogy. Irish directors are the largest group of non-British nationals on UK company boards.

The intermingling of our peoples means that there are many people in top jobs in Britain who carry an Irish passport, or are entitled to do so. In fact, the penetration of people of Irish descent almost amounts to a reverse take-over of the British establishment.

I’m only half joking. It is noteworthy that the Chief Executive of the British Council, the body responsible for promoting British culture and values around the world, is Sir Ciaran Devane, born in Dublin, a graduate of UCD and an Irish language speaker.

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And the new Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, Professor Louise Richardson, the first woman to hold that position, hails from County Waterford. These connections of kith and kin have been facilitated by a common language and a largely overlapping culture, which means that we have always had a lot in common. Talking of our common language reminds me that next month is the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.

During his state visit to Britain in 2014, President Higgins visited the Royal Shakespeare Company at its home in Stratford-upon-Avon. The President made a brilliant speech on that occasion, one that I often return to, re-read, and draw inspiration from.

“Today I want to acknowledge a great truth” the President said. “The English language that we share, if it was once the enforced language of conquest, is today the very language in which we have now come to delight in one another, to share our different and complementary understandings of what it means to be human together in this world, transacting in the currency of words.”

The late, great broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan was an enormously important figure in British-Irish relations during the 1970s and 1980s. 8 million British people used to wake up in the morning to his gently teasing voice. He became a national treasure.

When he retired from commentating on the Eurovision Song Contest, the BBC were fortunate in being able to replace the man from Limerick with one from Bandon, County Cork, Graham Norton.

Irish broadcasters are so much a feature of British life that last year, when the polling company YouGov asked British adults which their favourite accent in these islands was, the most popular turned out to be ‘Southern Irish’, ahead of received pronunciation (or BBC English).

That says a lot about the esteem and affection in which Irish people are held in Britain these days.

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One of the most thrilling examples of our shared culture took place last year in Sligo, at a party to celebrate the 150th birthday of the Ireland’s national poet, WB Yeats.

For the first time ever, the national poets of these islands - the chair of Irish poetry, the UK’s Poet Laureate, the National Poets of Wales and Scotland, the London Laureate and the Belfast Poet Laureate – were all gathered on the same stage.

On that evening these poets, all from different parts of our islands, seemed to embody a shared culture - expressed in English but with abiding Celtic influences. The fact that all these top poets were women also emphasised what held them together, rather than what separated them.

Sport has been another glue, holding us together against forces that might otherwise have pulled us apart.

Almost every Irishman supports a football team in England. Even those who may not like England very much, as shown by a much tweeted photograph, at the time of the Queen’s visit, of a demonstrator wearing a Manchester United shirt.

Rugby is important too. The British and Irish Lions team, which tours the southern hemisphere every four years, generates a strong sense of commonality among followers of the sport on both sides of the Irish Sea.

I should add that the golfing Ryder Cup produces a similar sense of ‘Europeaness’, particularly when the Europeans are doing well, a sentiment which we may need to harness in our referendum.

Back to rugby, you will recall, in 1973 during the Troubles, that the Welsh and Scots refused to play in Dublin but the England team came. Ireland beat them comfortably, 18-9. But the crowd at Lansdowne Road gave the English team 5 minutes of sustained applause: just for being there.

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At the dinner after the match, John Pullen, the England captain, uttered the immortal words: “We’re not much good but at least we turned up.”

More significantly, no-one who was at the England-Ireland match at Croke Park in 2007 will ever forget the atmosphere in the stadium as the anthems were played, or the quality of the match itself. It was a cathartic afternoon described by RTE Sport as:

“A riotous collision of histories and traditions, of emotion and sporting theatre, which will be remembered for an incredible prelude and an Irish performance to match… On a magical night in Dublin, it finished Ireland 43, England 13.”

The previous Irish ambassador to Britain said that one of the most memorable moments of his tour was during the London Olympics - when Katie Taylor won her boxing gold medal. It was remarkable, he said, not just because an Irish person was winning a gold medal at the Olympics but because of the extraordinary reaction of the crowd. Half Irish and half British, but everyone was on their feet shouting for Katie Taylor.

People to people links may be strong and we may share a common English- language based culture, but these factors alone don’t explain why things have got so much better.

A big influence for change began in 1973 when both countries joined the then European Economic Community. This brought British and Irish ministers and officials together, at European meetings, on a regular and frequent basis, for the first time. It is no coincidence that the first official visit by a British prime minister to Ireland, since the foundation of the state, occurred in September 1973. Our two administrations were finally learning the value of talking to one another. Both being member states of the EEC meant that we were no longer strangers to one another. Indeed, we began to realise how often we viewed developments in Europe in much the same way. Over time, we found ourselves becoming helpful allies to each other in many European negotiations. As a previous Irish permanent representative to the EU has said: ‘On a personal level, British and Irish negotiators have come to see that - though we often

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8 disagree - we share a way of approaching issues and doing business…Our shared membership has given us deeper common interests than ever and a structured context for pursuing them.” The British government particularly appreciated the support of the Irish government in helping it to obtain the package of measures on reforming the EU, and the UK’s relationship with it, at last month’s European Council summit. David Cameron wrote to the Taoiseach afterwards, saying he was profoundly grateful for Mr Kenny’s support which had made a real difference. Working for peace in Northern Ireland has also, over the years, built trust and confidence between the two governments. A degree of mutual suspicion which perhaps characterised our exchanges on Northern Ireland 30 or 40 years ago has been replaced, since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, by a strong sense of common purpose. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern worked hand-in-glove to produce that groundbreaking agreement. Their collaboration built on previous understandings between Margaret Thatcher and Garrett Fitzgerald and later between John Major and Albert Reynolds. We have seen more evidence of that intimate collaboration on Northern Ireland in the many weeks of negotiations over the last couple of years which led first to the Stormont House, and later the Fresh Start, agreements: negotiations facilitated by both the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, and by the Irish Foreign Minister, Charlie Flanagan. There were times during the past two years when Mr Flanagan and Ms Villiers were seeing much more of each other than of their respective cabinet colleagues and possibly even of their families. Irish and British engagement in the European project, which is itself at heart a great peace process for our continent, and in the peace process in Northern Ireland, has brought our two administrations together as never before. But it sometimes takes a high profile event for a people – or in this case two peoples – to acknowledge collectively that things have changed. We all know that a frog in a flask of water can be heated up so gently that it doesn’t notice the rising temperature. Perhaps, the slow and steady improvement in relations between our countries had been a bit like that, an unacknowledged but steady improvement.

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Until May 2011. The State Visit by HM The Queen transformed relations. It drew attention, in a way no other event could have done, to the change – to the mutual respect, friendship and cooperation that had become the new reality between us. The Irish ambassador to the UK at the time, Bobby McDonough, said that standing in the Garden of Remembrance when the Queen was laying her wreath for people who died for Irish freedom was the stand-out moment of his posting. As he put it, afterwards “there was nothing more to be done or said in terms of mutual respect between our traditions and identities”. If that was one of the most memorable images of that remarkable visit, this was another. If a monarch and a fishmonger could share a joke, so could we all. The state visit to Britain in 2014 by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, built on the success of the Queen’s visit and gave our relations another boost. There was naturally a particular emphasis on the contribution of Irish people to Britain over the years. As the Queen said at the state banquet at Windsor Castle: “Britain has been hugely enriched by the migration of Irish men and women to our shores. The contribution of Irish people has reached into every walk of British life…It is widely recognised that Britain is a better place because of the Irish people who live there”. One of the main outcomes from both these state visits has been the strategic signal from our two heads of state that, to paraphrase Olivia O’Leary, it is officially alright for us to like each other. It is as if the visits have given permission, as it were, for our publics to recognise openly the potential for real friendship in our relations. Carpe diem. The Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, and the Prime Minister, David Cameron, were not slow to seize the moment after the Queen’s visit. In March 2012, they set out their vision for the two governments to embark on a very ambitious, ten year programme of cooperation. Every Whitehall department, with its Dublin equivalent, should draw up a plan for working together. Creating jobs and securing the economic recovery would

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10 lie at the heart of our cooperation. But we should seek to work together on all and any aspects where it made mutual sense to do so. Annual summits of the two prime ministers would oversee our cooperation, which would also be underpinned by annual gatherings of all the secretaries general and permanent secretaries of the two administrations. Neither of us has such a comprehensive and structured programme of bilateral cooperation with any other country. This is, for Britain and Ireland, a sort of common law equivalent of the Elysee Treaty between Germany and France. Four years later, our two economies are growing strongly and more closely together. Economic success for one of us has helped the other. Our economic fortunes appear intertwined. It is not a stretch to say that these days we sink or swim together. Happily we are both now swimming strongly. Our two way trade is growing. It is worth well over 1 billion Euros a week. The UK is Ireland’s most important trading partner. 44% of all the exports of indigenous Irish firms go to the UK. Despite its small size, Ireland is also a really valuable market for British companies. Some economic research bodies predict that in ten years time, the UK will be selling more goods to Ireland than to France, if present trends continue. But the dry dust of trade data doesn’t tell the whole story. The fact is that many businesses operating in these islands increasingly seem to treat the British and Irish markets as a single unit. Supply chains across our markets are becoming more integrated. For each others’ companies too, Ireland and the UK are also both excellent places to try out exporting. In 2013 we knew of at least 450 British companies, younger than a year old, which became exporters for the first time in Ireland. We in Britain are happy to see Irish businesses prosper in the UK. They may begin as exporters. But many of them will, as they grow, want to put down roots in Britain too. We value their investment. Indeed, we take what I like to think of as an enlightened view of our national self-interest. Commercial success across these islands – by indigenous British and Irish companies and by foreign investors too – contributes to a rising tide that lifts all boats.

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Another strength, which facilitates people-to-people and business links, lies in the network of transport connections between us. These are myriad and easy. Cities across these islands are rarely much more than an hour’s flying time from one other. 528 flights leave Dublin airport every day. The most popular destination is Heathrow, served by 39 daily flights. The equal second most popular destinations are Manchester and London Gatwick. So the planets are aligned as never before. The governments in London and Dublin want this relationship to work in all walks of life but especially in business, since the creation of jobs and growth sits at the heart of both governments’ programmes. The stage is set for both countries to kick on further and really make the most of our geographical proximity and our familiarity with each other.

But there is a large cloud that may yet pass across the road that leads to these sunlit uplands. And it is called Brexit.

The principle of consent is a critical component of the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process in Northern Ireland. But it also applies to Britain’s membership of the European Union. As David Cameron has observed, consent for Britain’s membership is now only wafer thin. The opinion polls suggest that only a small margin of British voters wish to remain in the EU. And often the gap is within the margin of error. Why should this state of affairs have come about? It is lazy thinking just to blame the British press. There are Eurosceptic journalists in other countries. And British journalists are not notably more dishonest than those in other countries when addressing serious issues. The reason is more fundamental. In just about every other member state, membership of the EU is a guarantee of something existential. For the original six member states, the deep fear of another major European conflict fought over their territory means that faith in the European project is almost unshakeable. For Spain, Portugal and Greece, the EU has been their salvation from and safeguard against the return to the dictatorships of the past. For the central

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Europeans, the EU protects their young democracies and prevents them falling back towards command economies and intolerant one party politics. And it helps to keep Russia’s influence away. For Ireland, if I may say so, EU membership has been key to the country’s modernisation and remains crucial to a mature, friendly relationship with Britain. But the EU does not have the same existential importance for Britain. Our political institutions survived the two world wars and emerged, if anything, stronger for having been tested in the fire of global conflict. The EU did not modernise us. It does not guarantee our democracy. If anything, it slightly dilutes it. We were never occupied. So our fear of another European conflict is less visceral. Going further back, for most of Britain’s recent history we did our best to avoid getting entangled in the affairs of the continent so that we could get on with trading and building and maintaining an empire. So an arm’s length approach to the politics of Europe is, to some extent, in our national DNA. So in Britain, you do find an inherent exceptionalism. The EU has to prove itself on more prosaic grounds. Is it providing greater opportunities for business? What benefits do individuals get from membership? The pros and cons appear more in balance to many British people without an overriding need to belong to the EU. For those of us who strongly believe that Britain’s place is in Europe, this is all very worrying. But it is no use our thinking that because we think we know best, we should just plough on and ignore the nay-sayers. That is not the spirit of our age. That is not the politics of consent. The British Government must respect and respond to the British people's views. Hence our referendum. The date is set: the referendum will happen on 23rd June. Its outcome will be binding on the government. There will be no second referendum if the British public give the ‘wrong’ answer.

If a majority vote to leave, Brexit will follow - as sure as night follows day.

Most people assume that Britain’s departure from the EU would have a significant impact on Ireland. And it is a fair observation that most institutions

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13 and people in Ireland see much more risk than opportunity, were Britain to leave the EU. The Irish government’s position could not clearer. As Mr Flanagan, the foreign minister, said in a speech at Chatham House last September: “The approach the Irish government takes to this debate here is underpinned by one clear conviction: Ireland, the British-Irish relationship and the European Union as a whole are best served by Britain's continuing presence at the heart of the union. That's why we are so determined to see the UK – our close friend, our nearest neighbour, our most important business partner... – remain in the European Union alongside us.” The British government is not neutral on the referendum. It supports the case for the UK’s remaining a member state of a reformed EU on the basis of the four baskets of changes agreed at the European Council meeting on 18-19 February. The British government has begun to publish a series of short White Papers, as part of the preparations for the referendum campaign. May I commend them to you? If you have time, they are well worth reading as they analyse, in some detail, the pros and cons for the UK of our EU membership. Mr Cameron has written a foreword to the White Paper called ‘The Best of Both Worlds: the UK’s special status in a reformed European Union’, which as the title suggests is about the reform package agreed last month. The PM begins his foreword with these words: “We have secured a new settlement to give the United Kingdom special status in the European Union. We will be permanently out of ever closer union, ensuring we can never be part of a European super-state. There will be tough new restrictions on access to our welfare system for EU migrants, so that people who come to our country can no longer take out before putting something in. And we have also secured vital protections for our economy, with a full say over the rules of the free trade single market, while remaining outside the Eurozone. Our special status gives us the best of both worlds”.

As I say, the result of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union will be final. The Government will have a democratic duty to give effect to the electorate’s decision.

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The Prime Minister made clear to the House of Commons that “if the British people vote to leave, there is only one way to bring that about, namely to trigger Article 50 of the Treaties and begin the process of exit, and the British people would rightly expect that to start straight away”.

Although the rules for exit are set out in Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, the process is unprecedented. No country has ever used Article 50 – it is untested. There is a great deal of uncertainty about how it would work.

We do know it would be a complex negotiation requiring the involvement of all 27 remaining EU Member States and the European Commission. Before negotiations could even begin, the European Commission would need to seek a mandate from the European Council (without the UK present).

In its White Paper on the process for leaving the EU, the British government argues that the complexity of the negotiations, and the need for the UK to negotiate adequate access to the Single Market after it leaves the EU, would make it difficult to complete a successful negotiation before the expiry of the two year deadline, set out in Article 50. According to the White Paper, the negotiations could take a decade or more.

The White Paper adds that uncertainty during the negotiating period – over many years - could have an impact on financial markets, investment and the value of the pound, and as a consequence on the wider economy and jobs.

A third White Paper looks at the alternatives to EU membership for the UK.

This document provides examples of countries that are not members of the EU but have other arrangements with it – specifically Norway, Switzerland, Canada and Turkey – and describes those arrangements. It also looks at a possible relationship based only on World Trade Organisation membership.

In return for full access to the EU’s Single Market, as Norway enjoys, the UK would have to accept the free movement of people. Since the desire to take back control of our own borders lies at the heart of the leave campaign, it seems unlikely, post-Brexit, that the UK would accept free movement of people with the EU.

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Peter Mandelson, a former EU Trade Commissioner as well as a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland believes that a Canada-style bespoke trade agreement with the EU would provide nothing like the unhindered access to the Single Market that the UK enjoys today.

The EU-Canada FTA has 700 pages of exemptions from free trade. And as Canada is outside the Single Market it has no input into EU regulations meaning that its products, such as medical equipment, must be approved by EU authorities before they can enter European markets.

He sums up a Canada-style arrangement as new tariffs on trade, no influence on making regulations and restricted market access.

Trade deals, he says, are elaborate compromises from which those with the greatest negotiating power benefit most and countries even of the size of Britain ultimately have to settle for what they are offered.

An FTA may suit Canada’s national interests well as it sends only about 10% of its exports to the EU. But Mr Mandelson argues that for the UK, which sends nearly 50% of our exports to other EU countries, even a modest erosion of our present terms could have catastrophic results in areas of trade that are important to the UK like car making, agriculture or financial services.

The UK would lose its preferential access to 53 markets outside the EU with which the EU has Free Trade Agreements. These free trade agreements would take years for the UK to renegotiate on a bilateral basis.

Given the weight of the arguments, you may not be surprised to hear that:

“The UK Government believes that no existing model outside the EU comes close to providing the same balance of advantages and influence that we get from the UK’s current status inside the EU.”

How might the UK’s departure from the EU affect relations with Ireland? Well, the White Paper on the different models of life for the UK outside the EU addresses this, to some extent, as well. It says:

“The United Kingdom and Ireland are both members of the EU. Since the 1920s we have operated a Common Travel Area. In addition, both countries are part

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16 of the EU Customs Union, which means that there are no customs controls on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland (or between Ireland and Great Britain).

If we weren’t part of a Customs Union, goods being exported across the border could be subject to various forms of customs controls and their liability to duty determined according to complex Rules of Origin.

If the UK left the EU, it is not clear that the Common Travel Area could continue to operate with the UK outside the EU, and Ireland inside, in the same way that it did before both countries joined the EU in 1973.

Under most of the alternatives described in this paper, the UK would be outside the EU Customs Union and so trade across the border with Ireland would be subject to customs controls and rules on the origin of products.”

The paper doesn’t address the question of how, if at all, the reintroduction of border controls between Ireland and the UK, if they became necessary, would affect community relations in Northern Ireland and the viability of the peace process. Of course, other studies, done here, have looked at these questions.

Peter Mandelson admits that the impact on Northern Ireland and, by extension, the Republic of Ireland, is not perhaps as quantifiable as other risks but it is equally important as it concerns the future balance of the UK.

William Hague has also drawn attention to the risks to the Union (of the UK) should people vote to leave the EU.

“Scottish nationalists would jump at the chance to reverse the argument of last year’s (Scottish independence) referendum - now it would be them saying that they would stay in Europe without us. They would have the pretext for their second referendum and the result of it could well be too close to call.”

Peter Mandelson makes a similar point when he argues that: “Alongside the very real threat of Scotland’s departure through a second referendum” he argues, “the possible re-emergence of a hard Irish border between North and South means a vote to leave could irrevocably reorder our United Kingdom.”

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Since this is a such an important issue for relations across the island of Ireland, let me set out Lord Mandelson’s argument fully.

“Given the deep historic controversy and tensions attaching to Ireland’s North- South border”, he says, “the direction of policy for the past 30 years has been to make this border all together less prominent and conspicuous, whether for commuters, businesspeople or tourists.

“The border exists legally, but for practical purposes it has all but disappeared. As a result, there is greater political co-operation and tentative steps towards an all-island economy.

“It is unclear what the border arrangements would be in the unprecedented situation of the UK leaving Europe – and everyone would want to work to avoid border posts and elaborate checks – but the re-imposition of a formalised border would be a radical departure from the established strategy of administrations in Dublin, Belfast and London.

“Anything that strengthened a sense of separation between Northern and Southern Ireland – physically, economically, psychologically – has the potential to upset the progress that has been made and serve as a potential source of renewed sectarianism.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the risks of Brexit to British-Irish relations, which are now in an unprecedentedly good place, are being articulated on both sides of the Irish Sea.

A former editor of the Irish Times, Conor Brady, wrote in last weekend’s Sunday Times that: “Such is the deep connectivity between the Irish and British economies that Brexit would be a shock wave in Ireland. Ireland cannot be a disinterested observer as its largest trading partner sets about sundering mutually beneficial arrangements (for trade).”

“(Ireland) has a vital and legitimate interest in the outcome of the referendum…we can influence that outcome by mobilising the first and second generation Irish-born people living in Britain who are entitled to vote in the referendum.”

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Mr Brady is correct. Irish citizens resident in the UK or Gibraltar are eligible to vote in the referendum. As I said earlier, we reckon there are about 500,000 of them.

They include a former president of Ireland, Professor Mary McAleese, who is now living in Richmond who told me that one of the first things she did on moving to South West London was to register for the referendum - such is the level of her concern to avoid a Brexit.

Three months away from the referendum, it is far too soon to know what the result will be. But it appears to be on a knife-edge.

The Daily Telegraph’s EU referendum poll tracker, based on an average of the last six polls, gives 51% to ‘Remain’ and 49% to ‘Leave’ - in other words, within the margin of error of the polls, this is a statistical dead heat.

For both sides, getting their supporters out to vote will be crucial. And the received wisdom is that the ‘Leave’ camp are likely to be more enthusiastic about voting than the ‘Remain’ supporters.

There are no grounds for complacency. In a close result, every vote counts. It’s not my job to tell people which way to vote. But it is my job to explain the British government’s position on this question - which, to repeat, is that the UK should remain in the EU for the reasons I have outlined.

Our cultural, economic and familial ties would of course not be severed in the event of Britain’s departure from the EU, but they would be affected. The risks are hard to quantify but they are clear and serious. At a time when British and Irish people are getting on so well, when geographical proximity has become much more important than overlapping contested history, as Britain’s ambassador to this country, I hope we are not about to put the strengths of our relations under some kind of stress test. As Her Majesty the Queen said at the state banquet at Windsor Castle: “The goal of British-Irish relations can be simply stated. It is that we, who inhabit these islands, should live together as neighbours and friends. Respectful of each other’s nationhood, sovereignty and traditions. Cooperating to our mutual benefit. At ease in each other’s company.

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“After so much chequered history, the avoidable and regrettable pain of which is still felt by many of us, this goal is now within reach.” To which I add only this thought, now that this precious prize is within our grasp, we must do everything in our power not to drop it. Thank you very much. (6,400 words)

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