Brian Walker

Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London

Delay, delay and more delay…. High Noon next week – latest!

| Readers 1509

So where are we?  On Monday morning, things were looking up for the prospects of  Theresa May at least getting through the latest most momentous week in British politics since King Billy landed at Brixham ( I made the last bit up). By the afternoon, the rot had set in. On Monday evening, Mrs May took even cabinet ministers by surprise  and  laid her authority on the line at eleventh hour .  Rather than  risk fatal  rejection directly, she did …

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No Deal alarm is rising on both sides of the border

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Ah the old, old days! With so much concentration on the Westminster bubble, it’s easy to forget that the pressures of Brexit operate in several directions. Cracks in the facade of unity among EU 27 are appearing on the surface as the prospect of No Deal by default refuses to go away.  Irish alarm is by no means unique. As everybody always knew, solidarity with EU 26 leaves the Republic uniquely exposed to a particularly  inelegant game of  political poker …

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The DUP seem poised to bail out Theresa May. Will the EU be impressed?

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 After that cosy little dinner at Chequers, the Downing St spin machine duly delivered straight to The Sun   THE DUP have privately decided to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal next week when she toughens it up, in a major breakthrough for No10. The Sun can reveal that delicate deliberations are now ongoing between the Ulster unionist party’s leaders and the PM. In a crucial shift, it has emerged that the DUP are now willing to accept a backstop as long as …

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On Brexit be careful, for you tread on my myths

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For British and Irish readers alike, Fintan O’Toole is a leading scourge of Brexit, delving deep into British history and culture to explain its mainsprings.  For champions of  diversity  suffused with Brit guilt about unresolved issues of empire and the shifting sands of identity, there’s a  thrilling novelty about an Irishman with his history of victimhood,  even one with  such a  cosmopolitan outlook, diagnosing British ills and offering lessons from Ireland’s new minted – and more confident- present. Thank God …

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Brexit panic surfaces in Dublin but the EU is implacable on No Deal consequences

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Last night I managed to survive the Ivan Rogers Experience, ( YouTube) a remorseless  dissection of the  entire Brexit debate which was as depressing as it was impressive. With good reason, Rogers is known as the Eeyore among Brexit experts. He was the UK ambassador to the EU who quit in disgust six months into Theresa May’s premiership. Remorselessly he spelled out the defects of every option now facing the UK, including remaining or re-applying. He laid about him with …

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Opinion may be swinging but even DUP supporters favour a soft Brexit. What are the DUP doing to help bring this about?

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Polling results on Brexit vary widely according to the questions asked and the sequence of events in Parliament and between the UK and the EU, a major analysis of recent polls has found. Mrs May’s persistence with her deal despite last week’s massive majority against it suggests  that even the most dramatic results can be regarded as  unstable or heavily conditional. Some results however are clear enough. Unionists and nationalists are deeply divided on whether there should be a second …

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With the Conservative and Labour leaders now under internal pressure, MPs on both sides of the chamber move to take control

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. The moment of Brexit decision has shifted yet again – closer and closer to default crash out of the EU on 29 March. Theresa May has confirmed that plan B is plan A – basically the deal that was so massively rejected a week ago. But the dynamics have changed. Next Monday she will move a neutral motion to the Withdrawal Bill taking note of her statement today. This will allow amendments to be moved with alternative  proposals for …

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Varadkar offers a way out of deadock – or a hedge against failure?

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The UK national papers are united in hopelessness over May’s latest strategy, tempered only by disbelief.  Plan B is Plan A. Even the cheerleader for Brexit the Daily Telegraph is not impressed. The Europe editor slaps down the  chief political correspondent’s “ exclusive.” Theresa May is considering amending the Good Friday Agreement as part of a fresh attempt to unblock the Brexit logjam, The Daily Telegraph understands. Peter Foster But the mere suggestion that a British government wants to ‘amend’ the Good Friday Agreement should …

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Backstop terms are in prospect in any final deal. Unionists cannot afford to stand apart

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Unfashionable though it may be to ask: do the DUP have a point when they object so strongly to the backstop? Undoubtedly it confers special status on Northern Ireland but in a form nobody likes, even nationalists who called for it.  Mrs May’s deal a.k.a. the withdrawal agreement,  is presumed dead ; the backstop is only sleeping. The bitter controversy surrounding it dramatically expresses the fundamental  difference of outlook  between the legalistic approach of  people schooled from the beginning  in …

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Brexiteers at bay after the first day of May talks widens internal party splits

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As Paul Waugh aptly says in Huffpost.. The lectern moment’ really is wearing thin as a useful dramatic device for Theresa May. She’s stood on the steps of No.10 so many times now that she’s devalued the currency of its impact. And after this week’s shattering defeat of her Brexit plan, more than ever it seems like her Downing Street announcements are all words and no action. May rightly said the nation needs to ‘come together’, but showed little flexibility or humility needed to make …

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Break-up of the parties or No Deal Brexit – the looming choice

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As matters stand, we’re either heading for crash out No Deal or the main parties are heading for break-up. The Conservative and Labour leaders are dolally.  Theresa May is listening but not  to anybody who wants  a customs union or a second referendum.  Jeremy Corbyn will not only not meet her but has urged all Labour MPs not to meet her either.  But this request in a letter to his MPs came too late to stop former ministers Yvette Cooper and …

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In spite of a day without precedent, it’s still party before country from the Conservatives and Labour

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At the very moment Conservative and Labour MPs are passionately proclaiming the need to work together, the two parties are locked in the elemental struggle for power after a major defeat, a vote of confidence in the government. This is Labour’s ritual act to stave off having to commit to a policy. For  theirs is a unicorn with a mighty horn, a customs relationship that allows unilateral free trade negotiations and a single market relationship that restricts  free movement. On …

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Excuse the dampener -don’t be surprised if the moment of truth is postponed – again

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To be fair, in her direct appeal to MPs “to take a second look,” Theresa May made a better fist at making the case for her Deal in the Commons  than she did earlier at the Doulton pottery in Stoke.  For the first time she was saying that the Scottish nationalists and the “Ulster” nationalists of the DUP would carry the can for a catastrophic result. As a proud Unionist, I share the concerns of Members who want to ensure …

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Nothing new to offer as Theresa May misfires the last shot in her locker in support of her deal

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With her back to the wall Theresa May exposes  her own and her speech writers’ monumental ignorance of  UK devolution by bizarrely invoking the  creation of the Welsh Assembly based on a squeakingly narrow referendum result. as a killer argument   against calling a second referendum on Brexit.   What a pity that that she is such a poor  advocate  of what would otherwise be a viable proposal.  Extracts from May’s speech released by Downing Street last night show she will invoke …

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Plan for a border poll certainly, but as part of new British- Irish and North-South relationships

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Deep in the last ditch before Tuesday’s meaningful vote, the UK government are warning that the DUP’s refusal to back Mrs May’s deal brings a border poll nearer. The warning was put into the mouth of Karen Bradley who political anoraks may just remember is the minister with nominal responsibility for Northern Ireland affairs. No 10 put out one of their coy little  briefings to say that she  “told the Cabinet” that a border poll on the reunification of Ireland …

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The shape of the final deal actually looks promising- if only we can get over the hump of the backstop. London now needs Dublin’s help to get there

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 “Cosmetic and meaningless.” On behalf of the DUP, Nigel Dodds’ rejection of the government’s latest bunch of concessions and clarifications is entirely predictable. The legal text containing the backstop of the Ireland/ Northern Ireland Protocol has indeed not been changed as everybody knew it wouldn’t be and won’t be.  Many will shrug and say that’s that. But it’s nothing of the sort. If there’s to be any middle way between No Deal and No Brexit, it’s hard to see how …

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The DUP are the crucial “dominoes” in May’s bid to win a second meaningful vote

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Theresa May’s strategy to try to win MPs’ endorsement of the withdrawal agreement is a little clearer, arising out of hints she gave to Andrew Marr yesterday. The strategy  is classic if conventional  politics, before a fundamentally divided, incoherent opposition, however formidable it now seems. It involves  narrowing  the gaps, wearing down opposition by a mixture of  project Fear (miles of traffic jams and English police on Ulster streets ) and project Farce (the shipping company with no ships), and …

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Wobbles on the backstop and an eventual Fianna Fail- SDLP merger are new features of the countdown to the day of Brexit reckoning

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As Sammy Wilson was among the first to remind us, Brexit wars have resumed again after the Christmas pause.  Theresa May has just promised no delay to the meaningful vote scheduled for the week after next. But she declined to speculate on extending Article 50 if as expected MPs finally vote down the withdrawal agreement with the Irish backstop. According to  the Irishman who is professor of Constitutional and EU law at University College London, Ronan McCrea..    the UK …

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Looking through the lens of history helps us ease the torments of Brexit

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As a Christmas treat, let’s stand back from the tangles of Brexit and the backstop and take a broader look at how they’re complicating our fond old obsession with our choice of identities British, Irish and European. One of the leaders of the current debate is Fintan O’Toole  a torrentially eloquent writer who knows Britain as well as his own backyard. You’d be hard put to find an English equivalent writing about Ireland. What we see more of are endless voyages of …

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The prospect of prosecutions over the Stakeknife record underlines the need to enact a Legacy Bill

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Wisely, the usual knee jerk reactions from politicians and commentators  committed to one side or another in historical cases have  been held back after the sudden announcement from Jon Boutcher the chief constable of Bedfordshire running Operation Kenova that he has gathered evidence  to prosecution standard. It remains  to be assessed by the Northern Ireland director of public prosecutions. The prospect of state servants being charged over the record of Stakeknife cuts through the deadlocked debate on dealing with the …

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