The British-Irish Council (BIC) meeting on the Isle of Man last Friday was pretty much a non-event, partly because there’s a British general election in progress, but then it’s always pretty much a non-event.

Bet you didn’t even know there was a meeting. Why would you? If truth be told most people don’t even know what the BIC is, which is a deplorable state of affairs.

The BIC is a body established in Strand 3 of the Good Friday Agreement along with the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference and the North-South Ministerial Council. They’re all ratified by the British-Irish Agreement signed alongside the GFA whose official name is the Multi-Party Agreement. The BIC meets twice a year ‘at summit level’ as the GFA states, but it doesn’t because the British have played it down, or to be more precise the Conservative government since 2010 has played it down.

Gordon Brown, in 2007, was the last prime minister to attend though Sunak did attend a dinner in November 2022 when the BIC met in England. The BIC was also supposed to meet ‘at sectoral level’ with ministers from the various administrations considering matters in their area of responsibility. Again, that fell by the wayside.

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