MP calls for Ireland to join Commonwealth
Wednesday July 25 2007
A BRITISH Labour MP called yesterday for an official invitation to be extended to Ireland to rejoin the Commonwealth.
Andrew Mackinlay told the House of Commons that he believed Ireland should "take its natural place" in the Commonwealth 60 years after it left.
Europe Minister Jim Murphy told him it was not for Britain to issue such an invitation but for the "collection of states" which now comprised the Commonwealth to do so.
He said he would welcome an interest from Ireland in returning, but added: "I do not know whether the Irish Government intend to join the Commonwealth, or even whether they are considering that step. Nothing that I have seen or read suggests that to be the case."
The Government here was reluctant to get involved in the issue last night, with a spokesman saying only: "The Government's focus is on implementing the arrangements of the Good Friday Agreement."
Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Minister Eamon O Cuiv first floated the possibility of the Republic rejoining the Commonwealth as a conciliatory gesture to unionists in 1994. Last night, he said the issue had not come before the Government and he was giving a personal view. He said he had no difficulty with a United Ireland being in the Commonwealth. Mr O Cuiv, a grandson of Eamon de Valera, said he did not want to pre-empt government thinking but it was a fact that even in the '30s and '40s, the Commonwealth was not a major issue of principle for Fianna Fail. "It was not Fianna Fail which took this country out of the Commonwealth," he said. "It was John A Costello who did that."
Mr Murphy said in the Commons: "It is in Ireland that any application to join the Commonwealth must originate."
"The Commonwealth would find the Ireland of today not just prosperous but booming.
"We have a unique relationship with Ireland, based on our shared history. Were it to happen, Irish membership of the Commonwealth would provide a new context for that relationship.
Mr Mackinlay pointed out that the Commonwealth has 53 "sovereign, independent member states, only 16 of which have Queen Elizabeth II as head of state".
- Gene McKenna
