Brian Walker – Page 19 – Slugger O'Toole

The results of consultation on the Legacy Bill are about to be announced. They must be kept apart from the Stormont talks

Brian Walker on May 12, 2019, 8:52 pm

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Bloody Friday BBC image Barnie Rowan has broken important news on EamonnMallie. Com worth repeating at length. Just a few days ago the Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie described as “a staggering omission” the decision to keep the legacy question outside the main talks process – that new negotiation aimed at restoring the political institutions at Stormont and which has now completed the first week of its work. So, what is the thinking behind this? It is this. That to …

What would a Festival of Britain and Northern Ireland say? “Politics and ceremonial are not separate subjects, the one serious, the other superficial. Ritual.. is itself a type of power”

Brian Walker on May 11, 2019, 12:48 pm

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Ulster 71 Exhibition BBC Image The headline quote is from David Cannadine in “Rituals of Royalty etc..” in “Traditional Societies”, ed. Cannadine and Simon Price, CAP 1987 p3, quoted by Gillian McIntosh (below) Anniversaries like death and taxes are always with us. Perhaps they’re even sent to challenge us. Politicians are tempted to lay on bread and circuses to show up the better face of things. Could it really work for Brexit? The Irish Times believes not. The paper has …

Theresa May wants a Stormont deal before she quits; but will Penny Mordaunt queer the pitch over Army prosecutions?

Brian Walker on May 9, 2019, 11:55 pm

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Theresa May is back again looking for DUP support to get the withdrawal Bill through the Commons either before 23 May the day of the Euro parliament elections or in mid- June, if her party haven’t turfed her out by then. Her bid for support presumably features a customs arrangement with regulatory alignment added in order to dispose of the bogey of a border down the Irish Sea. The pitch hasn’t worked so far with the DUP or in those …

Leading human rights expert challenges Sinn Fein on “rights” stance

Brian Walker on May 9, 2019, 1:22 pm

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Brice Dickson, normally a sober sounding academic lawyer and a former head of the NI Human Rights Commission was first famous for recanting on his recommendation for an “all singing, all dancing” NI Bill of Rights. In the Newsletter today Brice has boldly entered the fray of the all party talks at Stormont to point out flaws in Sinn Fein’s starting position. Sinn Fein has abused the concept of human rights by setting up such rights as pre-conditions for …

Lyra McKee’s partner Sara Canning’s blunt messages for her killers and the government

Brian Walker on May 9, 2019, 8:00 am

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The mural of Lyra McKee, unveiled in Belfast on Tuesday From the Guardian report of Sara Canning’s interview on Channel 4 News “If the politicians won’t legislate for equal marriage at Stormont, then the prime minister should do it at Westminster. That’s what I told Theresa May at Lyra’s funeral. I wanted her to know that Lyra and I had a right to be treated as equal citizens in our own country. Surely that’s not too much to ask? She …

Sterling, Sweeney,Widdis, McKibbin and Gray. These are the people who could guide Stormont through to restoration

Brian Walker on May 8, 2019, 1:47 pm

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The latest set of Northern Ireland political talks look like a walk in the park compared to struggling through the tangles of Brexit. On the brink of transition, the British government is in a poor position to exert the kind of pressure to nudge the parties towards agreement. Some signs of life can be seen though. British- Irish cooperation has at resumed and is even managing to iron out some of the problems caused by Brexit over the common travel …

Brexit is hard enough to live through without the Irish going bananas about the end of Britain

Brian Walker on May 6, 2019, 5:57 pm

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Joan Redmond is a high achieving young Irish historian who took a master’s in Cambridge and now teaches in King’s College London. She also tells us she’s married to an Italian. In the Irish Times she gives an account of how Brexit is making her feel insecure. While Irish history has always had a presence in Cambridge, it is something of a declining force – for the worse, as we have seen with the current standard of debate and knowledge …

Terrible news about Bombardier but the prospects aren’t hopeless

Brian Walker on May 2, 2019, 2:43 pm

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With all the phased cuts and despite winning a battle against Trump’s protectionism, this will come as a shock but not much of a surprise. Sends a chill down the spine though. The local politicians are all running around looking for assurances, but impotent. They can’t even make the ritual promises of “everything will be done that can be done.” Brexit and the Stormont stand off all add to the impression of a difficult environment for new foreign direct investment. …

The revival of dynamic British- Irish solidarity is essential for rescuing the politics of Northern Ireland

Brian Walker on May 1, 2019, 8:54 pm

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Perhaps the murder of a model for her generation will produce a paradigm shift in politics. Perhaps they’ll seize the emotion of the moment and strike a deal. Had it not been for Lyra’s murder, the review of the GFA institutions would have been perfunctory. Active British government involvement in the government of Northern Ireland had virtually ceased. British- Irish relations were in cold storage over Brexit. Vote harvesting is the season’s preoccupation as far as the eye can see, …

To amnesty or not to amnesty? The UK government is squeezed from both directions, as up to 200 former soldiers face Troubles investigations

Brian Walker on April 25, 2019, 6:50 pm

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A wholly predictable row is brewing over government plans to exempt the Northern Ireland Troubles from amnesty plans for soldiers being drawn up by the Ministry of Defence. If they weren’t exempted a different row would be as inevitable. Guardian correspondents Owen Boycott and Ben Quinn report that up to 200 former soldiers are being investigated for alleged criminal acts in Northern Ireland, following the single prosecution announced over Bloody Sunday. They also claim that the NIO and the MoD …

UK government under new pressure from MPs to move on NI abortion law reform

Brian Walker on April 25, 2019, 6:14 pm

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Photograph: Niall Carson/PA The all –party Women and Equalities committee of MPs is demanding that the UK government puts pressure on the Assembly –if it resumes – to reform the province’s uniquely restrictive abortion laws by supporting an appeal to the Human Rights Court at Strasbourg. The government must inform Parliament within six months when it intends to allow the NI Human Rights commission to make the appeal to the Strasbourg court rather than requiring a woman with an …

RIP Heather Harper, from East Belfast to Glyndebourne

Brian Walker on April 25, 2019, 1:11 pm

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The great Belfast born singer Heather Harper has just died at the fine old age of 88. Heather, Barry Douglas and James Galway were the most acclaimed classical musicians Belfast produced in the twentieth century. As Alf McCreary writes, Heather never forgot her Belfast roots. I remember her performance – and his warm words afterwards – at the 50th anniversary concert for BBC Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. “She was the daughter of an Ulster lawyer, Hugh …

Two Popes battle it out over how to deal with the abuse scandal – and both are still losing

Brian Walker on April 22, 2019, 8:08 pm

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For late Easter reading I recommend Pope emeritus Benedict’s essay on the Church and the Scandal of Sex Abuse, recently published by a small Catholic magazine in Germany. No seriously, it’s great stuff. In very clear language the former 91 year old Cardinal Josef Ratzinger who was – and apparently still is – the greatest authority on Church doctrine during the reigns of four popes, has given his verdict on the great clerical sex abuse scandal that has so damaged …

Face the fact: creating an effective political response to Lyra McKee’s murder is no easy task

Brian Walker on April 20, 2019, 10:24 am

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It’s the saddest of ironies that Lyra McKee was promoting and living a lifestyle that was the powerful counter to the old siren calls of nineteenth century militant nationalism and imperialism – just the thing to drag bored and disaffected youth out of its rut. Her grieving partner Sara Canning and the rest of her family will take comfort from the fact that Lyra will live on in her work and the example of her life. As an insightful and …

The catastrophic fire of Notre Dame gives us a poignant message for Easter, that our heritage is as much about renewal and rebirth as death and destruction

Brian Walker on April 16, 2019, 1:50 pm

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Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times brings an American perspective to the catastrophic fire at Notre Dame. Like him I immediately thought of the place accorded to the great cathedral by Kenneth Clark in his monumental BBC series Civilisation I saw when broadcast in the 1970s, and then kept in an old fashioned box set of VHSs for viewing by children as an essential part of their education. Like Kimmelman, I think of other fires and destruction of the …

Appeals for calm come from heavyweights on opposite sides of the Brexit debate, but to reach opposite conclusions..

Brian Walker on April 15, 2019, 7:00 am

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In a joint article in the Observer, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern ask Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn to sink their other differences and follow the example of opposite sides in the Northern Ireland peace process. They should “encourage calm amid the chaos”, agree an EU withdrawal deal and submit the results to a confirmatory referendum. “….we feel duty-bound, a generation on, to stress to Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn the ongoing significance of the Good Friday agreement, to add …

Should the Irish ambassador claim to speak for Ireland over “anti-Irish” comment?

Brian Walker on April 13, 2019, 1:24 pm

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Was it appropriate for Adrian O’Neill the Irish ambassador to Great Britain ( sic) to complain publicly about an article in the Spectator at all, and specifically because he thought it was “anti-Irish?” I can’t reproduce it but article complained of by Robert Hardiman, made an ironic point about the Republic’s decision to join the Francophone commonwealth at this time of shifting relationships, rather than what used to be called the British Commonwealth. ( No please don’t get diverted to …

Will the DUP demand a new PM as the price of keeping the Tories in power? Enter Boris Johnson – or Sajid Javid?

Brian Walker on April 12, 2019, 11:29 pm

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The DUP’s support for the government is hanging by a thread, or at least for Theresa May, if only they can find the means of severing it . Arlene Foster has spoken of the prime minister in the scathing language of antique patriotism the DUP reserves for special opponents: Despite the prime minister being warned about the opposition to her withdrawal agreement, she has limped along and tried to force people into a cul-de-sac where they have no option but …

The DUP threaten to pull the plug on May’s careful plan

Brian Walker on April 11, 2019, 6:29 pm

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We may have a timetable up to Hallowe’en but for what? Apart from taking an Easter break from today to 23 April, MPs were only a little wiser after Theresa May’s long statement. The talks between the two front benches are “ serious “ but there is no meeting of minds on how to close the narrow gap between a customs arrangement (Conservative) and full membership of the customs union (Labour). There’s slightly better news on process. May and Corbyn …

The EU takes control while May considers a vote on a second referendum

Brian Walker on April 9, 2019, 8:00 am

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If what Peston hears is true, the comfort blanket of a long extension of Article 50 has been swept from under MPs’ feet and a binary choice between No Deal and No Brexit is shaping up. If the EU grants only the shortest of extensions at their emergency summit to the end of May – to just after the European elections – the pressure will reach fever pitch for the Commons to agree a new deal centering on the customs …