Leo Varadkar became the first taoiseach to visit Windsor Park
By Gareth Gordon
BBC News NI political correspondent
Say what you like about Leo Varadkar but he knows how to pick his spot – or in this case his halfway line.
Windsor Park is home to Linfield Football Club and the Northern Ireland team, a stadium known to many devotees as The Shrine.
Perched on the periphery of the loyalist Village area of Belfast, you’d have to be blind to mistake the allegiances of most, if not all, who live in its shadow: the multitude of flags provide a clue if you need one.
The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs asked if the taoiseach, Ireland’s prime minister, could visit and Linfield happily agreed – a sign of changing times if ever there was one.
And so Leo Varadkar became the first taoiseach to visit Windsor Park.
Mr Varadkar loves a photo op. He was once accused of treating a visit to west Cork “as a day out to Jurassic Park”.
Image source, Pacemaker
Mr Varadkar was given a warm welcome at ‘The Shrine’
His day out at Linfield was a photo op with knobs on. The party he leads, Fine Gael, are still known disparagingly by some as The Blue Shirts.
Still, the sight of the prime minister of Ireland holding up the blue shirt of Linfield with his name emblazoned across the back was photo op gold.
Image source, Pacemaker
He also received a personalised Linfield jersey
But this was a game of two halves. Suddenly he turned defence into attack and talked about a Plan B – and this wasn’t the merits of 4-4-2 versus 3-5-2 in football speak.
With the Linfield board looking on, he said there was a window of opportunity to restore the Stormont Executive – not to be confused with the transfer window.
If that opportunity is missed, said Mr Varadkar, “then I do think at that point we have to start having conversations about alternatives, about Plan B”.
Image source, Pacemaker
The taoiseach highlights a “window of opportunity” to restore Stormont
I asked if he was talking about joint authority over Northern Ireland shared between the British and Irish governments and he pointed out there was no provision for that in the Good Friday Agreement – but nor was there any provision for direct rule from Westminster, he said, adding: “I don’t mean anything specifically.”
And so he left it there, having lobbed over an inviting cross which will look to many unionists like a metaphorical hand grenade.
Paisley’s ‘big mouth’, Allister’s ‘meddling’
Cue outrage from predictable quarters. “Leo Varadkar needs to mind his own business, stay in Dublin and keep his nose out of NI affairs,” said Sammy Wilson, the Democratic Unionist Party MP.
Ian Paisley MP accused the taoiseach of having a “big mouth”.
Jim Allister accused him of “meddling”.
Leo Varadkar has been a convenient bogeyman for unionism before. He was accused of threatening violence over the Irish border in relation to Brexit – a claim he denies.
Of course, Mr Varadkar also pointed out on the Windsor Park pitch that the solution he preferred was Plan A – the restoration of the Stormont institutions.
But that will require a big move by the DUP, whose dilemma is brought into sharp focus by the taoiseach’s comments about Plan B.
Question: Is Northern Ireland’s constitutional position threatened more by what Jim Allister calls “the union-dismantling protocol” or by the lack of a functioning government which inevitably leads some to talk about Plan Bs?
Before Leo Varadkar kicked off in south Belfast, the DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson denied that the party was split over a return to Stormont.
But his leaked email in which he accused some within the party of briefing against it tells another story.
‘Sheer frustration’
So is it true that the fractures exposed two years ago when Arlene Foster was deposed have never healed?
Not exactly, according to one who was on the side of her nemesis, Edwin Poots, at that time.
“I would say those wounds have healed but there’s possibly a new cut and that is between those who want to return to Stormont and those who don’t,” they said.
“I just can’t understand why he put pen to paper. I can only guess it’s out of sheer frustration.”
And it’s true that unarguably the two figures who make an early return to Stormont most difficult for Mr Donaldson are two of his allies, Sammy Wilson and – perhaps most of all – Lord Dodds.
Another DUP figure who is not in the Donaldson camp says those two DUP veterans “have the measure of him.” ‘Him’, being Sir Jeffrey.
Sir Jeffery denies the party is split over Stormont return
I asked him this week how the DUP could possibly get from a position where Lord Dodds said the Windsor Framework “utterly failed” the party’s seven tests, to a place where they could even be contemplating a return to power sharing in the autumn without looking like they’d climbed down – or split.
He replied that the paper the DUP had put to the government on the Windsor Framework “was collectively agreed by our party officers and that, of course, includes Lord Dodds”.
Own goal or winner?
As for Mr Varadkar, it remains to be seen where he goes if, as looks likely, there is no Stormont return in the autumn.
One figure from the business world who has met him often said: “From my experience he always behaves like he’s completely disinterested.” He accused Mr Varadkar of “not being fully engaged” – unlike his predecessor, Michael Martin who, this person said, approaches things “in a really gentle and sensitive way”.
“I remember one meeting at the end of an admittedly busy day for him when he just appeared slumped in his seat like he didn’t really care,” the business figure said.
“At the end of the meeting what was important to him was the photo.”
This week, Mr Varadkar scored again in the photo-op stakes. Own goal or winner? Either way it looks likely to go to penalties.
