Stormont collapse ensures Northern Ireland cannot [further] exploit England’s Brexit difficulties…

It didn’t escape Nigel Farage or Michael Portillo’s notice last night that Michel Barnier was over pouring sweet nothings into the ears of anyone who could remotely cause Theresa May and the Tories a great deal of trouble.

YouTube video

It’s an acute move on the part of the EU’s chief operator negotiator to exploit the post referendum splits within the UK and a perfect opportunity for him to take notes from the Leader of the Opposition as well as the First Ministers for Scotland and Wales.

It’s a measure of how absorbed the NI media are with our collective outrage over egregious bonfires, that few, if any, serious commentators have given any attention to how not having an FM or dFM has put the part of the UK to be most affected by Brexit at a serious strategic loss.

But given just how seismic the consequences may be for Northern Ireland and the Republic absence of any public voice from such consultations is at best a self-binding into political helplessness.

After the Referendum last summer, when Gerry Adams so memorably said, “you always have to never waste a crisis” it wasn’t clear he only meant up to (but not including) the point at which his own party might have to do some heavy lifting in order to exploit “England’s difficulty”.

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.