UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says it’s evidence that his plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is acting as a deterrent.
The Republic of Ireland is looking to amend the law to allow the return of asylum seekers to the United Kingdom, according to broadcaster RTE, after an influx over the border with Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.
Dublin’s Minister of Justice Helen McEntee, who will visit London on Monday, told a parliamentary committee this week that she estimates 80 percent of those applying for asylum in the republic came over the land border with Northern Ireland.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Sky News it was evidence that London’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is acting as a deterrent.
“What it shows, I think, is that the deterrent is … already having an impact because people are worried about coming here,” he said.
In response, a spokesperson for Ireland’s Prime Minister Simon Harris said the leader “does not comment on the migration policies of any other country but he is very clear about the importance of protecting the integrity of the migration system in Ireland”, RTE reported.
“Ireland has a rules-based system that must always be applied firmly and fairly,” Harris also said.
The spokesperson added that the Irish PM had asked his justice minister “to bring proposals to cabinet next week to amend existing law regarding the designation of safe ‘third countries’ and allowing the return of inadmissible International Protection applicants to the UK”.
McEntee is expected to discuss a new returns policy when she meets British Home Secretary James Cleverly in London on Monday.
“That’s why I’m introducing fast processing, that’s why I’ll have emergency legislation at cabinet this week to make sure that we can effectively return people to the UK and that’s why I’ll be meeting with the home secretary to raise these issues on Monday,” she told RTE.
Ireland had previously designated the UK a “safe third country” to return asylum seekers to, but last month the Irish high court ruled that this breached European Union law, stopping the process.
The UK’s Rwanda bill cleared its final parliamentary hurdle last Monday after a marathon tussle between the upper and lower chambers of parliament.
Sunak hopes the bill will prevent asylum seekers from trying to enter the UK on small boats over the English Channel from northern Europe.
As the genocide in Gaza rages on, various European countries, including Spain and Ireland, have indicated that they are moving towards recognising the State of Palestine.
The new Irish prime minister, Simon Harris, argued that a group of like-minded countries officially recognising a Palestinian state would “lend weight to the decision and … send the strongest message”.
Meanwhile, Spanish officials argued that this could create momentum for others to do the same. Currently, most countries in the Global South, but only very few in the West, recognise the State of Palestine. As it stands, recognition of the State of Palestine is a political and symbolic move – it signals the recognition of the Palestinian right to sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza. In reality, no such sovereignty exists – rather as an occupying force, the Israeli regime maintains de facto control over both territories and effectively controls everything that goes in and out, including people.
Recently, some moves have also been made towards granting Palestine full membership to the United Nations, and thus recognising its statehood at the UN level. In mid-April, a resolution was put forward at the UN Security Council that would have paved the way for full Palestinian membership. Twelve members of the UNSC voted in favour but, unsurprisingly, the United States blocked the initiative using its veto power. Rather predictably, the United Kingdom and Switzerland abstained. Prior to the vote, the Biden administration offered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a meeting at the White House in return for suspending the bid. Abbas declined, probably still stinging from last year when he reportedly accepted a similar offer and never received the invitation to the White House. Indeed, it has been the case many times before that the Palestinian Authority suspended action at the UN at the bequest of the Americans in return for a measly payoff, or no payoff at all.
Some Palestinians and international human rights organisations argue that recognition is a crucial step towards securing Palestinian fundamental rights and one that offers more legal avenues to hold the Israeli regime accountable. Yet it is difficult to envision how recognition of a state that does not exist would change the reality on the ground for Palestinians facing systematic erasure.
In fact, it is pertinent to ask whether some states are pushing for this symbolic political move amid an ongoing genocide to avoid taking much more tangible actions, such as arms/trade embargoes and sanctions on the Israeli regime, to support Palestinians and reaffirm their right to sovereignty.
For example, Spain – one of the leading voices calling for recognition – in November exported $1m worth of ammunition to the Israeli regime, which by that time had already killed thousands in Gaza. Meanwhile, Ireland’s exports of restricted “dual-use” goods that have potential military purposes grew nearly sevenfold in 2023, from 11 million euros ($11.8m) to more than 70 million euros ($75m). Despite growing calls for an end to all trade relations between Ireland and the Israeli regime, these exports continue to this day. It thus begs the question; What does recognition of a people’s statehood mean when you remain complicit in funding, arming and equipping the regime that is destroying the very people of that state?
But for most diplomats and foreign officials, the crux of the recognition argument is that it will revive the “two-state solution” amid what is being framed as a political impasse. A solution which, premised on the partition of the land of historic Palestine, does not recognise Palestinian fundamental rights in their entirety and effectively accepts Israeli apartheid. Indeed the two-state solution demands that Palestinians world over forgo their rights to their lands and properties in historic Palestine and accept a truncated state in the 1967 occupied lands instead. Further, it demands that Palestinians accept Zionism as a legitimate ideology rather than one of settler-colonial domination.
Today, in addition to the genocide in Gaza, which has seen Israeli forces kill more than 34,000 Palestinians and destroy 70 percent of the enclave’s infrastructure, the West Bank is facing unprecedented land theft, settlement building, destruction of homes and violence at the hands of both soldiers and settlers. This reality is a rather predictable outcome of decades of pushing a flawed solution framework which favours colonial partition of justice and freedom.
That’s why what Palestinians need from the international community at this moment is not the symbolic recognition of a non-existing state, but tangible action, including trade embargoes on and sanctions against the Israeli regime to hold it accountable for its ongoing crimes across colonised Palestine.
As the genocide rages on, Gaza continues to teach the world many things, and among them is that the Palestinian people cannot be “siphoned off into Bantustans” and forgotten about. Indeed, partition will never be a sustainable or long-term solution and the international community needs to come to terms with this.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
As Israel’s war on Gaza rages on for a seventh month, with almost 34,000 Palestinians killed, Madrid wants to recognise Palestine as a state by July and is encouraging its neighbours to follow in its footsteps.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a longtime supporter of Palestinian rights, sees recognition as a way of reaching a two-state solution and a possible key to ending the devastating conflict that began in October.
“The time has come for the international community to once and for all recognise the State of Palestine,” he said in November. “It is something that many EU countries believe we have to do jointly, but if this is not the case, Spain will adopt its own decision.”
In all, 139 out of 193 United Nations member states consider Palestine as a state. Those which do include European nations such as Iceland, Poland and Romania, as well as countries like Russia, China and Nigeria.
The European Union as a whole does not recognise Palestine, nor do states including the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
Sanchez, who has discussed the issue on his recent trips abroad, has declared that his country has agreed with Ireland, Malta, and Slovenia on the need for recognition.
That four European governments are in favour of the move while others are against is a sign that the EU, as an institution, is deeply divided.
Earlier this week, Portuguese premier Luis Montenegro told Sanchez that his government would “not go as far” as Spain without a joint European approach.
Members of the bloc have for months adopted divergent positions on Israel’s conduct in the besieged enclave and are also split, perhaps to a lesser degree, on the Russia-Ukraine war.
But it is not surprising to see Ireland, Malta, Slovenia, and Spain taking the lead among EU members on this front, given their long-held positions in support of Palestinian self-determination.
The four governments would have preferred to make the move within the EU framework, which would have given them far more leverage, but the pro-Israel positions of Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and others would stand in the way.
To that end, policymakers in Dublin, Ljubljana, Madrid, and Valletta determined that their best possible course of action was to move ahead in this relatively small group of like-minded EU members.
It is possible that a few more European countries will join soon later and agree to recognise the State of Palestine, said experts.
“This decision might trigger a few more recognitions, but I do not expect an avalanche,” Marco Carnelos, former Italian ambassador to Iraq, told Al Jazeera. “Other EU member states will watch what the big members like Germany, France, and Italy will do.”
According to Carnelos, there are “no chances” of Germany or Italy under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni agreeing to such a move.
As for France, “maybe”, he said.
Belgium, whose officials have been more critical of the war and called for economic sanctions on Israel, has said it will consider recognising Palestine.
“Belgium holds the rotating presidency of the EU this semester and this is most likely the reason why the Belgian government has not joined Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, and Malta in their push to recognise Palestine,” Marc Martorell Junyent, a Munich-based journalist, told Al Jazeera.
“Considering the critical position of the Belgian government about Israel’s war against Gaza, it is likely Belgium will join the other countries in their efforts after June, when it will no longer hold the rotating presidency,” he added.
Other EU members will likely watch closely to see whether the move has negative repercussions on ties with the US, Israel’s top ally, or Israel itself.
Nonetheless, beyond “some verbal reaction” from the pair, Carnelos does not expect any concrete actions, such as the downgrading of diplomatic relations or economic sanctions.
In November, Israel summoned Belgium and Spain’s ambassadors after the leaders of both nations denounced alleged war crimes in Gaza. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen went as far as accusing them of giving “support to terrorism” at that time.
“In the case of Spain, Israel withdrew her ambassador for some time. Something similar could happen if Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, and Malta push for Palestine’s recognition,” said Martorell.
In March, Foreign Minister Israel Katz warned the four countries against recognising Palestine, likening the plan to a “prize for terrorism”.
In a similar vein, Israeli Ambassador to Ireland Dana Erlich, asked: “Why reward terrorism?”
Israel’s latest military campaign in Gaza is by far its deadliest.
This stage of the Israel-Palestine conflict began after Hamas, the group which governs the enclave, attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,139 people and taking more than 200 captive. Some of the captives have been released, others have died, and dozens remain held.
Israel has been bombarding Gaza with the stated aim of crushing Hamas, but with mostly women and children among the dead and much of the Strip reduced to rubble, that goal remains elusive.
In recent months, several global powers have called for Israeli restraint, including Washington.
Analysts said even if Palestine is increasingly formally recognised, the reality of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land will limit the effect of the move.
If European nations were to apply serious pressure on Israel, it could happen in one of two ways, said Matorell. The first would be by suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which is the legal basis of the bloc’s trade ties with Israel. The second would be through halting arms sales to Israel.
Spain, never one of Israel’s key arms dealers, is the only EU member to have imposed an arms embargo.
The only two members of the bloc to have recently sold Israel significant levels of weaponry are Germany and Italy – Israel’s second and third top sources of weapons behind the US.
Martorell believes that Berlin and Rome will continue with their arms sales to Israel for the foreseeable future.
“The only way European states will change the Israeli calculus and behaviour on the Palestinian issues is through heavy sanctions, but probably no European state, except Ireland I believe, will be ready to pursue such a path. Germany will prevent any move in such direction, and in this case, the US reaction could be very strong,” Carnelos told Al Jazeera.
“Ultimately, EU member states do not shine for their political courage and their determination in defending the values they are so proud about and claim so obsessively. Or, to put it more precisely, they do on certain topics but not on others. It is called a double standard,” added the former Italian diplomat.
Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez says declarations on Palestine will be made “when the conditions are appropriate”.
Ireland and Norway are both moving closer to recognising Palestinian statehood, leaders of the two countries expressed separately after meetings with Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who also champions the move.
Ireland wants to recognise Palestine soon, but in a coordinated action with Spain and more European nations, the country’s Prime Minister Simon Harris said after meeting Sanchez in Dublin on Friday.
Earlier in the day, Sanchez travelled to Oslo, where Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said his country also “stands ready” to recognise Palestine together with “like-minded countries”.
Sanchez said Spain wants to recognise Palestine “as soon as possible”, leveraging the move as a way to gain momentum for a definitive peace process.
The current efforts come as the mounting deaths, starvation and infrastructure damage in the besieged Gaza Strip due to Israel’s war have resulted in growing international criticism.
Within Europe, the concerns about Israel’s war on Gaza have also led to shifting positions – including more nations considering the possibility of recognising Palestine.
Last month, Spain and Ireland, long champions of Palestinian rights, announced alongside Malta and Slovenia that they would jointly work towards the recognition of a Palestinian state. They said they were “ready to recognise Palestine” in a move that would happen when “the circumstances are right”.
On Friday, after meeting Sanchez, Harris said, “Let me this evening say our assessment is that that point is coming much closer and we would like to move together in doing so.”
“The people of Palestine have long sought the dignity of their own country and sovereignty – a home that like Ireland and Spain can take its place amongst the nations of the Earth.”
Sanchez said that willing countries would make their declarations “when the conditions are appropriate” and that they would support the new Palestinian state becoming “a full member of the United Nations”.
The Spanish leader has repeatedly angered Israel with his outspoken comments since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, while Harris has already drawn a rebuke from the Israeli government this week.
Israel told the four European Union countries that committed to moving towards Palestinian recognition that their initiative would amount to a “prize for terrorism” that would reduce the chances of a negotiated resolution to the generations-old conflict.
Norway ‘stands ready’
“Norway stands ready to recognise the state of Palestine,” Norwegian Prime Minister Store, whose country is a part of the Schengen zone but not the EU, told a joint news conference with Sanchez earlier on Friday.
“We have not set a firm timetable,” he added, saying a decision on Palestine’s recognition would need to be taken in close coordination with “like-minded countries”.
In November, Norway’s parliament adopted a government proposal for the country to be prepared to recognise an independent Palestinian state.
Norway also hosted Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at the beginning of the 1990s, which led to the Oslo Accords.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 33,600 Palestinians and injured more than 76,000 others since October 7. A Hamas attack on southern Israel before the war killed about 1,100 people there.
In all, 139 out of 193 UN member states recognise Palestine as a state.
The premiers of Spain and Ireland are set to meet on Friday to discuss a collective plan to recognise Palestinian statehood.
This meeting comes as the death toll of Israel’s war in Gaza has surpassed 33,000.
The mounting deaths, starvation and infrastructure in the besieged enclave have resulted in growing international criticism of Israel. Within Europe, the concerns over Israel’s war on Gaza have also led to shifting positions — including more nations considering the possibility of recognising the Palestinian state.
Here’s where things stand — and how they’re changing.
What are Ireland and Spain saying about Palestinian statehood?
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will meet Ireland’s newly appointed leader Simon Harris in Dublin on Friday. Both Spain and Ireland have in recent weeks confirmed that they will recognise a Palestinian state.
This is the first of many meetings Sanchez intends to have over the next week to garner support for the recognition of Palestine.
Sanchez plans to also meet with the prime ministers of Norway, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia and Belgium, government spokeswoman Pilar Alegria told reporters.
“We want to stop the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and help kickstart a political peace process leading to the realisation of the two-state solution as early as possible,” Alegria said.
Over the course of the war that started on October 7, Ireland and Spain have emerged as the biggest supporters of Palestine in the European Union (EU).
Are others in Europe shifting positions on Palestinian statehood?
At a summit on March 22, the leaders of Ireland and Spain were also joined by their counterparts from Slovenia and Malta in committing to the recognition of a Palestinian state.
Currently, only eight of the 27 EU members recognise Palestine as a state: Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Sweden and Cyprus.
If Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and Malta join them, the number of EU members that recognise the Palestinian state will go up to 12.
However, the EU as a body does not recognise Palestine as a state — despite multiple diplomatic efforts over the years from within the bloc to do so. Some of the EU’s most powerful and influential nations, including Germany and France, hold the position that Palestinian statehood should only be recognised as part of a two-state solution with Israel.
Is Europe’s position on the war changing more broadly?
Israel has also received criticism from other European countries over the course of the war. On November 10, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo deemed Israel’s campaign in Gaza disproportionate.
“If you bomb an entire refugee camp with the intention of eliminating a terrorist, I don’t think it’s proportionate,” he said, but insisted that “Belgium will not take sides”.
A few days after that, Belgium’s deputy prime minister made a rare European call for sanctions against Israel. And later in November, the prime ministers of Belgium and Spain held a joint news conference in Rafah, on the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza, criticising Israel’s war.
When Israel accused the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) of having links to the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, several countries cut funding to UNRWA. However, European countries including Romania, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden continued to support the UN agency.
“We think that cutting the funding is the wrong reply because that smells to me of collective punishment,” Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide told Al Jazeera.
Where does the rest of the world stand on Palestine now?
Israel’s biggest ally, the United States, has also recently warned Israel against its planned ground operation on Rafah. It also did not veto the last UN resolution that called for a ceasefire during Ramadan. However, the US continues to supply military aid to Israel.
Other countries have also stepped up in support of Palestine. While the South African genocide case against Israel is under process at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Nicaragua has also presented a case before the ICJ on Monday calling for Germany to stop supplying arms to Israel.
In all, 139 out of 193 United Nations member states recognise Palestine as a state.
Ireland’s parliament has elected Simon Harris as the country’s new and youngest-ever prime minister, to succeed Leo Varadkar following his surprising resignation last month.
On Tuesday, parliament members erupted in cheers as Harris’s nomination was confirmed 88-69, after securing support from some independent lawmakers, as well as his coalition partners Fianna Fail and Green Party.
The 37-year-old former health and higher education minister, best known for helping steer Ireland’s initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic, was elected unopposed as the new leader of the centre-right Fine Gael party last month, days after Varadkar’s shock exit.
“I do accept this nomination to serve as taoiseach [prime minister],” Harris said. “I commit to doing everything that I can to honour the trust that you have placed in me.”
Acknowledging his new government’s coalition partners who supported his candidacy, Harris said that he intends to lead “in the spirit of unity and collaboration and mutual respect”.
Pledging to re-energise and “reset” his party, Harris told a weekend conference of its members that he plans to steer it back towards “core values” like promoting business, farming, and law and order.
I am deeply honoured to become Taoiseach of this great country today.
I will be a Taoiseach for All, a Taoiseach that will work every day to realise the hopes, dreams and aspirations of all our people.
Harris’s election as prime minister caps a meteoric political rise. He joined the youth branch of Fine Gael at the age of 16 and quickly rose through its ranks.
A county councillor at the age of 22, he was elected to parliament as a 24-year-old in 2011. At the time he was the youngest member of parliament and was nicknamed “Baby of the Dail” (Irish parliament).
He was appointed health minister in 2016 aged just 29 and higher education minister in 2020.
Reshuffle
As Ireland’s new leader, Harris faces a formidable to-do list, including tackling the housing and homelessness crises, and criticism of government policy on asylum seekers.
One of his first jobs will be to choose his cabinet of ministers. He is due to announce a reshuffle of his Fine Gael team – which makes up seven of the 18 seats in the cabinet – on Tuesday.
Harris said last week that some contenders will be “rightly delighted”, while others will “feel a sense of personal disappointment”.
“I will do my very best to use the best judgement that I have in the mandate I’ve been given by this party to put together the best cabinet,” he added.
When he was selected last month, Harris told party’s members that he would repay their faith with “hard work, with blood, sweat and tears, day in and day out, with responsibility, with humility and with civility”.
He also said he would pursue a “more planned and sustainable” immigration policy, following increased tension over the issue, and that he would “fight against the dangers of populism”.
With a reputation for slick communication skills, Harris will also urgently seek to galvanise his struggling party, which lags in polls as key elections loom.
Ireland votes in local and European parliament polls on June 7, while the next general election must be held by March 2025.
Fine Gael slumped to third place at the last general election in 2020, well behind left-wing, nationalist Sinn Fein, which secured the largest share of the vote.
In the last three years, polls have put Sinn Fein, which backs unification with Northern Ireland, a British province, as the preferred choice to lead the next government.
Before Harris, Varadkar was the country’s youngest-ever leader when first elected at age 38, as well as Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister. His mother is Irish and his father is Indian, which also made Varadkar Ireland’s first biracial taoiseach.
In March, Varadkar, 45, said it was the right time for him to step aside. “My reasons for stepping down now are personal and political, but mainly political,” he said without elaborating.
Cosgrave resigned as CEO in October after backlash to post accusing Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza.
The co-founder of one of the world’s largest tech conferences has returned as chief executive six months after stepping down amid a backlash over comments he made criticising Israel.
Paddy Cosgrave said on Monday that being away from the annual Web Summit had given him time to think about the event and “why I started it on my own from my bedroom and what I wanted it to be”.
“I took the time to reconnect with old Web Summit friends and I listened to what they had to say and what they wanted from Web Summit,” Cosgrave said in a post on X.
“Some incredible tech advancements, relationships, partnerships, and companies have grown from our events and I want to continue building on this. If anything I want to supercharge this mission even further to build even stronger communities within Web Summit.”
Cosgrave said he hoped to make the summit more intimate and community-focused in future.
“We will seed small communities at our events, and then help those communities thrive long after each event,” he said, adding that he was excited for the future with loads more to share.
Cosgrave, who co-founded the Web Summit in 2009, did not make any reference to the controversy sparked by his comments about Israel.
When I stepped back last year, it was the first time I had taken time off in 15 years. It gave me time to think about Web Summit, its history, why I started it on my own from my bedroom and what I wanted it to be.
Cosgrave stepped down as head of the Lisbon-based conference in October after coming under fire over a social media post he wrote accusing Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza.
“I’m shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many Western leaders & governments, with the exception in particular of Ireland’s government, who for once are doing the right thing,” Cosgrave said in the post on X.
“War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are.”
Cosgrave’s remarks led a number of tech firms, including Google, Amazon, Meta, Stripe and Siemens, to announce their withdrawal from the conference.
In a statement clarifying his comments at the time, Cosgrave said he unreservedly condemned Hamas’s “disgusting and monstrous” attack on Israel on October 7 and that he supported Israel’s right to defend itself, but the country should follow international law.
The Irish entrepreneur later announced his resignation, saying his comments had become a “distraction from the event”.
Former Wikimedia Foundation CEO Katherine Maher took over from Cosgrave before stepping down last month to become CEO of National Public Radio in the United States.
Harris will be voted in as Ireland’s youngest-ever prime minister when parliament next sits on April 9.
Simon Harris is set to become Ireland’s youngest prime minister after he was appointed as the new leader of the governing Fine Gael party.
The 37-year-old said it was the “absolute honour of my life” to be appointed party leader on Sunday, replacing Leo Varadkar, who resigned unexpectedly on Wednesday, saying the party would be better governed under another leader.
Harris will be voted in as the Republic of Ireland’s youngest-ever prime minister – known as the taoiseach – when the country’s parliament or Oireachtas next sits on April 9 due to support from Fine Gael’s coalition partners.
“I think he’s done a really good job in securing the leadership in as comprehensive a way as he has,” Fine Gael deputy leader Simon Coveney said.
Harris told the centre-right party’s members that he would repay their faith with “hard work, with blood, sweat and tears, day in and day out with responsibility, with humility and with civility”.
Setting out his priorities, Harris insisted that Fine Gael “stands for law and order” and told members he wanted to “take our flag back” from nationalists, to loud cheers.
He also said that he would pursue a “more planned and sustainable” immigration policy, following increased tension over the issue, and that he would “fight against the dangers of populism”.
On the international front, he called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and condemned Russia’s “horrific illegal invasion of Ukraine”.
He will have no more than a year to save the coalition from defeat at parliamentary elections.
In the last three years, polls have put Sinn Fein, a left-wing party that backs unification with Northern Ireland, a British province, as the preferred choice to lead the next government.
However, two more polls on Sunday confirmed a recent trend of support for Sinn Fein dropping off highs of 12-18 months ago.
A Business Post/Red C poll conducted before Varadkar’s departure as taoiseach put Sinn Fein’s lead over Fine Gael at six percentage points, while an Irish Independent/Ireland Thinks survey showed a five-point edge.
Harris, formerly a minister for education, research and science, is best known for taking responsibility for Ireland’s COVID-19 response.
He said recently that he became involved in politics as an “opinionated, moody teenager” bothered by the lack of educational supports for his autistic brother.
Although he has spent most of his adult life in parliament, Harris has cast himself as an “accidental politician”.
His online presence led one opponent in the Oireachtas to dub Harris the “TikTok taoiseach”.
While the economy grew strongly under Varadkar, successive governments, of which Harris has been part, have struggled to tackle a decade-long housing crisis and, more recently, the pressure from record numbers of asylum seekers and refugees.
Inheriting a three-party coalition government working off an agreed policy programme will not give the incoming leader much room for major new policy initiatives.
Before Harris, Varadkar was the country’s youngest-ever leader when first elected at age 38, as well as Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister.
His mother is Irish and his father is Indian, which also made Varadkar Ireland’s first biracial taoiseach.
Varadkar, 45, has had two spells as taoiseach — between 2017 and 2020, and again since December 2022 as part of a job-share with Micheal Martin, head of coalition partner Fianna Fail.
Leo Varadkar’s decision to step down as prime minister of Ireland was so surprising that, according to reports, not even colleagues from his centre-right party, Fine Gael, saw it coming.
The Republic of Ireland’s taoiseach (the Irish Gaelic word for “chief” or “leader”), who will resign his post as prime minister as soon as a successor is chosen by his party and then approved by the Irish parliament, cut an emotional figure as he made his announcement on the steps of government buildings in Dublin on Wednesday after serving two terms as Irish premier – the first from 2017 to 2020 and the second since 2022. He will step down as his party’s leader with immediate effect.
With his party floundering in the polls, the 45-year-old said that another leader – and therefore another prime minister – would be “better placed” to tackle the next Irish general election, which must be held no later than March 2025.
“I believe this government can be re-elected,” he said. “I believe a new taoiseach will be better placed than me to achieve that – to renew and strengthen the top team, to refocus our message and policies, and to drive implementation. After seven years in office, I am no longer the best person for that job.”
Who is Leo Varadkar?
As the dramatic manner of his resignation suggests, Varadkar has not shied away from making political waves during his time as a front-line politician.
Indeed, when the former medical doctor became taoiseach in 2017 at the age of just 38, he immediately made history as the youngest, the first mixed-race and the first openly gay politician to occupy the premiership of Ireland, a European Union member state steeped in Catholic heritage.
Varadkar, who was born in Dublin to an Indian immigrant father and Irish mother in 1979, first went public with his sexuality during a radio interview with Ireland’s RTE Radio 1 in 2015 while serving as Irish health minister.
“I am a gay man. It’s not a secret, but not something that everyone would necessarily know but isn’t something I’ve spoken publicly about before,” he told listeners.
“It’s not something that defines me,” he added. “I’m not a half-Indian politician, or a doctor politician or a gay politician for that matter. It’s just part of who I am … it is part of my character I suppose.”
Why is he stepping down now?
Varadkar’s attempt to modernise references to family and women in the country’s 87-year-old constitution in a dual referendum earlier this month resulted in a humiliating and heavy defeat for the taoiseach and his political allies.
The first question in the referendum asked Irish voters for permission to widen the definition of family by amending wording so it read that families can be established “on marriage or on other durable relationships”.
The second question asked citizens whether the clause – “mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home” – should be deleted and another – “The state recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision” – added.
Varadkar had described the polls, which deliberately fell on International Women’s Day on March 8, as a chance to do away with “very old-fashioned, very sexist language about women”.
In the end, however, the nation disagreed with him and, while Ireland’s main political parties all campaigned for a “Yes, Yes” vote, Varadkar was particularly criticised for leading a “gimmicky” and “confusing” campaign.
“There are a lot of people who got this wrong and I am certainly one of them,” he said after the referendum results were announced.
Tom McTague, political editor of the UK’s UnHerd, summed up Varadkar’s immediate legacy by writing that he “resigned as all political leaders do: dispirited and unpopular, the sheen of his early years long since wiped away by the grinding realities of government. His party, Fine Gael, now trails badly in the polls. Ireland’s housing crisis borders on the obscene”.
Ireland’s Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, right, presents United States President Joe Biden with shamrocks during a St Patrick’s Day reception at the US White House, on Sunday, March 17, 2024 [Stephanie Scarbrough/AP]
What were his career highlights as Irish taoiseach?
Varadkar’s time at the top of government saw him serve five years as Irish prime minister and two as deputy prime minister (between 2020 and 2022).
When he first became taoiseach in 2017, Ireland’s nearest neighbour, the United Kingdom, had recently voted to quit the European Union in its so-called Brexit referendum of 2016 – which also triggered the resignation of a prime minister, the UK’s David Cameron.
But after then-UK Prime Minister Theresa May declared that Britain’s departure from the EU would also mean its withdrawal from the bloc’s single market and customs union, the spectre of a hard border between EU member the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, loomed large.
Northern Ireland’s sensitive political history of sectarian conflict known as the Troubles – which lasted for nearly 30 years and ended in May 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement – became a major issue for Varadkar, who wanted to keep the flow of goods moving between the two jurisdictions without the need for security cameras or border posts dividing the island of Ireland.
Varadkar was at the centre of negotiations between the UK, the EU and Ireland on this issue, which saw a deal finalised after Northern Ireland was made to align with EU trading rules.
Varadkar namechecked this deal, which was recently modified as part of a deal to resume Northern Ireland’s devolved power-sharing government in February, as one of his main successes in his resignation speech.
“We prevented a hard border between north and south and protected our place in Europe,” he stated.
Varadkar oversaw the lifting of a near-total ban on abortion in 2018 when the country voted overwhelmingly in favour of reform of the country’s strict laws.
In recent months, Varadkar has publicly criticised Israel’s ongoing military campaign against the Gaza Strip.
Following the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year, the physically imposing premier (he stands 1.9m or 6ft 4in tall) departed from the Western narrative when he criticised the Israeli state’s military motives in the face of the rising Palestinian death toll, which has since surpassed 31,000.
“What I’m seeing unfolding at the moment isn’t just self-defence. It looks, resembles something more approaching revenge,” he said during a visit to South Korea in November 2023. “That’s not where we should be. And I don’t think that’s how Israel will guarantee future freedom and future security.”
When multiple nation donors suspended funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) after Israel accused it of employing members of Hamas, Varadkar was among the few leaders who pledged to continue sending money in February.
On March 15, just five days before he announced his resignation, Varadkar urged US President Joe Biden to work towards an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza during a St Patrick’s Day meeting in Washington with the American leader, who frequently refers to his own Irish heritage.
Simon Harris, minister for further and higher education, research, innovation and science, leaves Dublin Castle after a cabinet meeting in May 2021. Harris is the favourite to replace Varadkar as Ireland’s taoiseach or prime minister [Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images]
Who will succeed Varadkar as Irish PM?
Ireland’s minister for higher education and former health minister, Simon Harris, is being widely touted as the favourite to succeed Varadkar as leader of Fine Gael, and become Irish prime minister.
At just 37, a victory for Harris would see him trump Varadkar as the youngest-ever Irish taoiseach if Fine Gael declare him as its new party leader on April 6, and he is voted in by the Irish Parliament after the Easter break.
Others initially seen as possible contenders, including enterprise minister Simon Coveney, minister for justice Helen McEntee and minister for public expenditure Paschal Donohoe, have ruled themselves out.
In a surprise address, Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar announced he’s stepping down as the country’s leader and would immediately resign as leader of the Fine Gael party. He’ll stand down as Taoiseach, or prime minister, as soon as a replacement is chosen after parliament’s Easter break.
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