Brian Walker – Page 32 – Slugger O'Toole

Guardian exclusive. A home grown plan for checks at NI ports, rejected by the DUP but still in play

Brian Walker on May 4, 2018, 6:49 pm

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A backup plan to impose border checks on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK at ports and airports to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland after Brexit has been drafted by senior civil servants. Despite the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) angrily rejecting any suggestion of a border “in the Irish Sea”, a leaked paper reveals that officials have been working on a blueprint “to be deployed as necessary in the negotiation process” While acknowledging these …

Dead parrots and delay: how they’re groping their way – towards 2023!

Brian Walker on May 4, 2018, 12:32 pm

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Boats with EU, UK flags sailing in opposite directions

The Guardian reports that No, the customs partnership is not a dead parrot and is still in play with “ max fac” the high tec solution that doesn’t exist yet. May’s enforcers are negotiating with her ambitious defence secretary Gavin Williamson to switch sides and support the partnership. Or a new combination of the two. And the outcome? The Remain Guardian and Brexiter Daily Telegraph are agreed, although split over its desirability. The Guardian Senior civil servants are believed to …

Fears of joint authority surface as the Lords approve no border checks without Dublin consent

Brian Walker on May 3, 2018, 3:48 pm

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Sometimes –only sometimes – debates in Parliament tell us a lot more than a dozen columnists or a week of Nolan. And with much greater courtesy than the latter, needless to say. One such took place yesterday when the House of Lords supported moves to prevent a hard border after Brexit under which no new checks or controls could be imposed without the agreement of the Irish Government. If you think this would be innocuous enough you’d be wrong. Approval for Patten’s amendment …

New revelations about the Ballymurphy massacre require urgent action by the British government

Brian Walker on May 2, 2018, 2:24 pm

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The report Mick highlights of a UVF sniper firing into Ballymurphy at the time of the massacre in 1971 for which up to now 1 Para was believed to be mainly responsible, underlines the paramount importance of finding out basic facts in dealing with the past. As I argued the other day, it is not only unacceptable but self-defeating for armchair soldiers in today’s battle of the narratives to thwart the rule of law, whether they are unionists defending the …

If you were the EU’s chief negotiator, what would you say to Arlene Foster to make her happier?

Brian Walker on May 1, 2018, 1:11 pm

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Not exactly an unbiased report in the Daily Telegraph Michel Barnier has denied trying to split up the United Kingdom after strongly backing plans that would create a new border between Britain and Northern Ireland after Brexit. In an inflammatory address in Dundalk, Ireland on Monday, Mr Barnier denied there was a secret EU plan to pressure Britain into reversing Brexit by insisting on a backstop clause that would keep Northern Ireland in the EU’s Single Market and Customs Union. Arlene …

On the legacy deadlock, equality before the law for the security forces is not moral equivalence with the IRA

Brian Walker on April 30, 2018, 3:49 pm

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Ruth Dudley Edwards has just commended “Legacy: What To Do About The Past in Northern Ireland”, a short book by Unionist councillor and redoubtable human right campaigner Jeff Dudgeon, edited mainly from the contributions at the conference on legacy legislation he organised in Belfast on March 3rd. As you’d expect, Ruth shares the passionately held view that the UK’s so far unseen draft Legacy Bill is based on a flawed approach developed by the traditional justice academic lawyers who to …

DUP threatening to bring the government down over a customs union – or are they?

Brian Walker on April 26, 2018, 9:00 pm

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An interview with Nigel Dodds for the PolticsHome website is headlined: DUP warns it could bring the government down if Northern Ireland kept in customs union – and let in Jeremy Corbyn? (my addition). Mr Dodds said continued membership of the customs union would “cross a very big red line for” for his crucial bloc of 10 MPs. He said: “For us there is the fact that if as a result of the Brexit negotiations for instance there was to …

Fears of new Brexit crisis over the border and the customs union are exaggerated. Probably

Brian Walker on April 21, 2018, 12:13 pm

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Stakes are being raised in the Brexit poker game as “ deadlines” of June or is it October? approach. I continue to believe that a solution will be found without harming the single UK market, in a customs relationship involving trusted trader schemes and an increase in regulatory checks at our ports and airports. Next week, the issues will be tested in a Commons debate with a non-binding vote on a Lords motion approving continued membership of the customs union. …

The civil service must share the blame with the politicians for our faltering administration

Brian Walker on April 19, 2018, 1:22 pm

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Newton Emerson has written a thoughtful piece on that neglected topic, now blindingly exposed by the RHI inquiry, of how Northern Ireland is administered. He had already decided that the region is too small to sustain a comprehensive health service. The inquiry’s verdict on specific blame could be years away. In the meantime, the first overarching theme to emerge has been something of a surprise – namely, that Northern Ireland is too small to have a separate administrative existence. A key motivation …

The Border Force row exposes differences between British and Irish citizenship that have to be settled

Brian Walker on April 18, 2018, 10:00 am

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Leaving aside the delicious irony, I would guess that Sinn Fein are right: the attempt to limit recruitment for the UK Border Force to British passport holders is discriminatory and would be overthrown in court. Why should anyone have to produce a passport for a job in Northern Ireland anyway? This has echoes of the malign Windrush problem. without feeling the pain – yet, Up to now only when you go abroad and need to produce a passport has the issue …

Political ferment is reflected in the GFA junketings, but no sign of a breakthrough

Brian Walker on April 11, 2018, 12:23 pm

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Will the DUP and Sinn Fein pay any attention to the eloquent pleas of the elder statesmen to return to the Executive? On the surface the answer appears to be no, unless something is going on behind the scenes we don’t know about. Local politics suffers from elder statesperson fatigue. This generation has learned how to take in their stride the high sounding generalities from popes, presidents and prime ministers past and present. The shock of the new wore off …

A noble illusion perhaps, but unity and reconciliation are not compatible

Brian Walker on April 9, 2018, 3:20 pm

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Writing in the Irish Times, Robin Wilson has eloquently identified “a cosmopolitan vista of “unification as reconciliation” among diverse individuals on the island…. as the current Tory government disappears down the Brexit rabbit hole”. Amid fears of a renewed, Brexit-induced hard Border, a plebiscite would be a blunt-instrument (and one-sided) response – less discussion, more sectarian headcount. A more sophisticated approach, less likely to lead to highly unwelcome consequences, would be to redefine the process of north-south co-operation recognised by …

Achievements in Sport, Art, Drama – all in one day’s news about Northern Ireland!

Brian Walker on April 9, 2018, 9:57 am

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I still have the exile’s old habit of registering references in the News to home that lift the spirits rather than embarrass the hell out of me. Today must be a some kind of record. It may be parochial but it’s very gratifying. If there really is such a thing, it must be good for the image. Although it was a painful watch on TV it was obvious that the Augusta crowd loved Rory as much for his vulnerability as …

Trimble rains on the GFA parade with supposed threat from loyalist paramiltaries over Brexit terms

Brian Walker on April 8, 2018, 1:02 pm

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David Trimble has many qualities but spreading sweetness and light is not prominent among them. He has pricked the bubble of the GFA commemorations with a sinister warning. The one thing that would provoke loyalist paramilitaries is the present Irish government saying silly things about the border and the constitutional issue. If it looks as though the constitutional arrangements of the agreement, based on the principle of consent, are going to be superseded by so-called ‘special EU status’ then that …

Fianna Fail going North would be a game changer. It implies an electoral pact with Sinn Fein in a bid to out poll unionists and lead a southern coalition towards unity

Brian Walker on April 4, 2018, 9:19 pm

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Poor old SDLP! What’s the point of voting in council elections next year for a party that says it may go out of business not now but maybe later? If Fianna Fail enter the lists, it has to be big, it has to be about more than rescuing the anti- Sinn Fein tradition of northern nationalism. It can only be to rob Sinn Fein of its role as the pacemaker for a united Ireland. Who ought to be better placed …

A revised Belfast Agreement is needed more than nostalgia for 1998

Brian Walker on April 2, 2018, 4:31 pm

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Like Magna Carta, the Belfast/ Good Friday Agreement has acquired the status of icon of the constitution. This is not altogether in its favour. A good deal of nonsense is talked about Magna Carta. Back in 1215, no sooner had the ink dried on the vellum of the fair copy, than bad King John denounced it. But the idea of curbing the unbridled power of the monarch could not be unborn and it finally evolved into government by the rule …

With or without a good deal on Brexit, EU oversight of an all-island economy is looking likely

Brian Walker on March 29, 2018, 11:34 am

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Jim Allister QC is not the only one to spot the potential extension of north-south areas of cooperation under “the backstop”, the notorious Option 3 of the draft Withdrawal Agreement, as Newton Emerson reports. There’s quite a bit more from Professor Dagmar Schiek of Queen’s University and from human rights organisations north and south. With cooperation, authority follows. It is indeed a wonder that the DUP have not reacted more strongly. They seem to be putting their faith in a …

Transfixed by their obsessions without progress, they ignore the real politics of the future …

Brian Walker on March 26, 2018, 1:49 pm

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Following on from Peter Donaghy’s really interesting corrective post comparing ROI/NI household income, what about the Budget then? How did it go down with you over the tray bake or down the pub? Yes, I’ll bet you were riveted. The frustration in veteran economic commentator John Simpson’s measured prose is clear enough. The British government know they can spin the budget without facing direct challenge. Punch drunk civil society reacts wearily, having made similar points for years to little avail …

The Vatican should put Northern Catholics out of their misery about the Pope’s visit

Brian Walker on March 24, 2018, 1:21 pm

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I can’t help thinking of Pope Francis as a sort of benign Donald Trump, a figure at odds with his own establishment who delivers sound bites that inspire some and appall others, but has no very consistent policy one way or another. Patsy McGarry ‘s view is typical, that if the Pope expresses contrition for the appalling – and continuing – record of abuse and cover up, the Church might enjoy a new beginning. Two years after the photograph was …

The next big Brexit issue- the future rights of EU/Irish citizens in the North

Brian Walker on March 22, 2018, 12:56 pm

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Another big Brexit theme has been overshadowed by the border conundrum – the future of citizens’ rights in Northern Ireland. The contention is that many of these will go unprotected when the UK withdraws from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the rulings of the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg, a key UK government aim. The Charter has greater force than the non-EU European Convention on Human Rights which is written into UK law as the Human Rights …