Being Irish in Britain

The Labour Party, Brexit, and me

I am a forty-one-year-old Irishman living in Shipley, a small town on the edge of the city of Bradford in West Yorkshire. Although I have lived in Britain since 2010, it is only recently that I have had the time to reflect on my experiences. What follows is a series of reflections based on my family’s immigrant story and my involvement in British politics.

From rural Ireland to urban Britain

I grew up on a 70-acre farm in County Roscommon, in the Republic of Ireland. My father and mother worked incredibly hard all their lives and reared nine children with very limited resources. My siblings and I all had to work on the farm and help out around the house from a young age. It was a typically Catholic, rural working-class upbringing. It could be tough going at times, but there was great freedom growing up in the countryside and the hard work instilled a strong desire in us to get on and achieve in life. So much so that six of my siblings immigrated to England at various points in the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, with another two moving to Dublin.

While most of my siblings left home in their teens, I didn’t leave until I was twenty-three. Up to that point, l had finished school, dropped out of college, and moved from job to job, while still helping out on the farm. In 2003, l went to university at NUI Galway as a mature student and ended up doing a BA and an MA in history. I also met my future wife, Sinead, in Galway.

In 2008, as the effects of the economic crash took hold in the Republic, Sinead and I decided to move to Belfast, in Northern Ireland, for her to specialise as a paediatric dentist at the Royal Victoria Hospital and for me to do a PhD in history at Queen’s University. In 2010, we moved to Cardiff, where Sinead finished her training, and I finished my PhD. In 2012, we moved to Shipley, where Sinead got a job with the Bradford District Care Trust.

The Labour Party adventure

Just after we moved to Cardiff in August 2010, l made the fateful decision to join the Labour Party. I joined because I believe the party best represents the things in life l value the most: family, community, fairness, tolerance, and equality. The party’s approach to government also reflects my belief that we should live in a society where, broadly speaking, the state encourages and helps people to get on in life, while also encouraging, helping, and protecting people who are struggling to get by, marginalised, or vulnerable. Finally, under Tony Blair’s leadership, the Party helped change British-Irish relations for the better and bring about peace in Northern Ireland.

Idealism aside, l also joined because l wanted to see how politics worked. l went to local party meetings, delivered leaflets, and knocked on doors. I threw myself into it properly when we moved to Shipley; and before l knew what was happening, l was standing as a council candidate in Shipley Ward for the 2014 local elections. l knew l wasn’t going to win, as it was a safe Green seat, but l wanted to run a half decent campaign. I think l achieved that and was asked if I would do it all again the following year. l decided not to, mostly because Sinead and I had our second child and l was lecturing part-time in Leeds. Nonetheless, I stayed involved, helping with leafleting and canvassing in the local election and general election campaigns of 2015.

The Brexit bombshell

My life changed dramatically in January 2016 when the Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, Richard Corbett, offered me a job. I had gotten to know Richard in 2014 and in the meantime had given him my CV. A full-time role suddenly came up in his Leeds office and I snapped at the chance.

But then the EU referendum came along, and everything went a bit haywire. Although I had plenty of campaigning experience, the referendum was a different beast entirely, with many difficult conversations with people about immigration and Ireland.

On immigration, many people told me they were unhappy with the number of immigrants coming into the country and taking advantage of the social welfare system, the NHS, and other public services. I would usually respond by saying that there was a long history of immigrants coming to the UK and making a very positive contribution to society. Some would reply by saying that the Irish were alright, but other immigrants were not, which seemed to imply that they did not like non-white immigrants. A few made this explicit with openly racist comments, but most would stress that they did not mind where people came from as long as an effort was made to integrate.

My response to the integration argument was that it was not that long ago when Irish Catholic immigrants were deemed dangerous or a generally inferior breed of people. Or the Windrush generation who, although British citizens, often received horrendous racist abuse. l would then make the link between these recent historical examples and the even more recent racism directed towards Pakistani immigrants, and their British descendants, in places like Bradford, with the added scaremongering around Islam.

At that point, some people would demonstrate a general willingness to engage in a sensible conversation about immigration and the rights and responsibilities that come with living in a foreign country, as well as the need for tolerance and respect by those already living in the country.

However, many would deflect and go down the route of blaming the EU for all of the UK’s apparent immigration woes. From a hard-headed political point of view, l could understand this, as those who wanted to deflect in this way had already made up their minds to vote leave anyway. But still, these were awkward and draining conversations as an immigrant, especially when first and second-generation immigrants would sometimes make the anti-immigrant arguments most vociferously.

On Ireland, l found either a knowing or unknowing indifference to the issues of a land or sea border; strained community relations in Northern Ireland; and the souring of North-South and British-Irish relations. Generally speaking, there would be a metaphorical shrug of the shoulders and an expression of how things would be fine, which I found a bit depressing.

I was not looking for British people to be beside themselves with worry about Ireland. Neither was l saying or thinking that the UK did not have the right to Brexit because it would potentially make life difficult for Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. I was just hoping for a recognition from people who were intending to vote leave that it would be highly problematic for both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland if the UK voted to leave. But most leave voters were generally not interested or openly did not care, dismissing my concerns as part of ‘project fear’.

From romantic to disgruntled immigrant

What all this negativity and indifference around the issues of immigration and Ireland did was begin to change my view of Britain.

This view was initially based on my older siblings’ experience of immigrating to London in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s. It was undoubtedly a difficult time for them to come to Britain when the IRA were bombing British cities and killing innocent civilians, but my impression as a young boy was that they seemed to mostly enjoy it. They brought their English friends, girlfriends, and boyfriends home for visits; and most of them went on to make England their home, settling down, getting married, and having children.

I got a taste of Britain too in this period. In 1989, I went to London for my eldest brother’s wedding and was absolutely gobsmacked by what l experienced. To put it rather crudely, as a ten-year-old Irish country boy I had never seen a black, brown, or Asian person in my life. My older siblings had black, Asian, and gay friends. It was all a complete revelation and l loved it. In 1995, I visited Bath for another brother’s wedding, drank copious amounts of champagne with his English mates, and danced the night away in a nightclub l should not have gotten into because I was only fifteen!

I’m sure that I have romanticised a lot of these memories and experiences, but the key point is that they gave me a largely positive view of England. For this wide-eyed Irish teenager, the English were now just ‘normal people’ who enjoyed a beer and a laugh as much as the Irish. But perhaps more importantly, l also got the impression that England was a far more liberal country than the conservative, Catholic Ireland that I was growing up in.

These experiences were complimented by the fact that British politics and culture was very much part of my teenage life in Ireland. I used to watch the news with my father all the time and have vivid memories of Thatcher’s dramatic downfall in 1990; Kinnock’s emotional resignation speech in 1992; the signing of the Downing Street Declaration in 1994; Blair leading Labour to a landslide victory in 1997; and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. I was, and still am, a Liverpool fan. I loved Oasis, the Prodigy, and numerous other British rock, pop, and dance bands.

On the whole, there was something a bit edgy and rebellious about British culture that appealed to me as a very rebellious Irish teenager who like to go out and party. And politically speaking, the British seemed to be moving on from the stuffy, domineering attitude of Thatcher to the more relaxed, cooperative attitude of Blair’s Labour Party. In general, one could say I had developed a strong affinity for liberal British values before I had even lived in Britain.

But this rose-tinted view was tempered by actually living and working in Britain. Indeed, my experience of doing labour politics in Wales and England gave me first-hand experience of the diverse range of community tensions, social problems and, in my view, often illiberal attitudes that exist across the country. This was compounded and exacerbated by the brutal experience of the EU referendum.

Despite all this, my reaction to the referendum result was to accept it and hope for a relatively civil Brexit debate. Theresa May’s citizens of nowhere conference speech in October 2016 dashed this rather naïve hope. To my mind, her speech was a further ratcheting up of the immigration debate, calling into question who deserved to be considered a real citizen of the UK or, worse still, should be permitted to stay in the UK. It did not make me feel very welcome.

But life goes on and l continued working for Richard Corbett until November 2017 when I took up a position as an organiser for the regional Labour Party in Yorkshire and the Humber. This was a stressful job in itself, but watching the seemingly constant drama of uber partisan Brexit debates in parliament could be equally stressful.

It was, however, the question of Ireland that played most on my mind, with the land or sea border being debated with great fury in the British press, often without any real knowledge or understanding of Irish culture, politics, or economics, or how it would change the day-to-day lives of people in Ireland, North or South.

All in all, looking at it from an Irish perspective, it seemed to me that the UK government, particularly under Boris Johnson’s leadership, was displaying an arrogant disregard for the impact its conduct in the Brexit negotiations was having on Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and British-Irish relations.

The reflective immigrant

So where does all this leave me now?

On the one hand, my involvement in British politics has taken in the largely positive experiences of being an ordinary Labour Party member, a council candidate, and working for a Labour MEP. On the other, these positives have been outweighed by the overwhelmingly negative experiences of the EU referendum campaign and the polarised Brexit debate that followed.

Along the way, however, I have met many great people and made many friendships, both inside and outside of politics. I love the diversity and general kindness and good humour of the British people. Yorkshire folk have got a bluntness and a wit that I can very much identify with. My children have got Yorkshire accents. They will almost certainly grow up thinking themselves English/British, but hopefully with a strong sense of Irishness too! My wife and I are both happy here and I cannot see us leaving.

That said, I cannot escape the nagging feeling that my experience of British politics has made me feel less positive about Britain and more of an outsider. This is not to say that l have ever been a target of abuse or that I have anything to complain about. I am a white, well-educated, middle-class man, with a lovely wife and family. It is to say, however, that all the negative debate about immigration and Ireland has made me feel that the attitude of many British people towards immigrants and Ireland is, at best, inconsiderate or, at worst, downright antagonistic.

My perception of my siblings’ immigrant experience, together with my teenage affinity for British culture and politics, gave me a largely positive, admittedly rose-tinted view of Britain. But my experience as an Irish immigrant intimately involved in British politics, especially the politics of Brexit, have left me feeling kind of negative about Britain.

This is not a feeling I enjoy having and I am hopeful it will subside as I continue to lead a more ‘normal’ life outside of politics. However, for me, the jury is still very much out on whether the UK can take a more positive direction in the coming years under the decidedly Anglo-centric and populist leadership of Boris Johnson.