Brian Walker “What we want to take off the table, before we even talk about trade, is any idea that there would be a hard Border, a physical Border, or a Border resembling the past . . . Then we’d be happy to move on to phase two.” “The UK insists that the issue cannot be tackled until the EU agrees to move to discussion of phase-two issues. Speaking at Iveagh House on Friday, Boris Johnson echoed Mrs May’s approach. “In order to resolve …
The low key reception given to the documentary No Stone Unturned, the film documentary on the UVF murders of six randomly selected Catholics in their local Loughinisland pub in 1994 which is currently being given a brief screening at the Queen’s Film Theatre, is the latest example of how presumed familiarity with the underlying problems of Northern Ireland has produced if not quite contempt, at least widespread deadening indifference. Warm congratulations nevertheless go to The Detail team especially their reporter …
Want to know where we really are on Brexit? In three words, in a mess. Can we get out of it? Possibly at the eleventh hour, 10 pm on Friday 19 March 2019, just like the Good Friday Agreement in fact. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. As so often – like the Stormont standoff – the politics look more difficult than the rational solutions. The Irish and British prime ministers profess themselves in the dark about each others’ …
As a comparative outsider I’m struck by how most commentators are obsessed with speculating about political positioning and identity narratives. This has produced numbing negativism and despair rather than the energy needed to approach the daunting but practical problem of trying to restore the Executive. Being case hardened and calloused, they endlessly refine their own explanations for obvious failure. They accept the parameters set by the DUP and SF too readily. To be fair, this is often the default caused by a …
When we’re reduced to praising James Brokenback for masterly inactivity, we’ve surely found rock bottom. One tiny flicker of life turns out to be an illusion after all. DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson has denounced as “fake news” a story from the new Financial Times Ireland correspondent ( and ex-Irish Times ) Arthur Beesley, that “Theresa May’s £1 billion is on hold as to talks falter” (£) There may be less to this than meets the eye. A budget imposed by …
The Catalonian campaign for independence is a phenomenon of our times, like the Scottish. They both claim they are ancient entities enjoying sufficient cohesion to go it alone and find their own balance between globalisation (the great big world now closer to all of us than ever) and self sufficiency ( provided it comes under the safety blanket of the EU). They seem to think they deserve as of right, easy acquiescence and the blessing of a good deal from …
From the British- Irish Parliamentary assembly meeting in Liverpool, as reported in the Sunday Times (£) Both Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland who tend not to vote — in either Westminster or assembly elections — would reject a united Ireland in the event of a poll, according to research presented to Irish and British politicians. “Non-voters” would be decisive in a border poll because they are likely to come out in record numbers, according to an analysis by Liverpool …
BBC News Online has launched a Health Tracker – usefully covering the whole UK for a change – to monitor targets in three key areas: accident and emergency departments, cancer care and planned operations and treatment. It will run for a year and you can keep checking on progress in your Trust area. While they say it’s difficult exactly to compare like with like in the four “ nations” because of policy differences on choosing the range of targets, Northern …
If the Irish Times is right, Dublin HQ has prevented Michelle O’Neill from striking a political deal. It is a deplorable fact that throughout this 10 month deadlock, so little is reliably known about party positions beyond nods, winks and notoriously unreliable mood music. At least in the Brexit negotiations the principals give some sort of account after every session. Times have changed since 1998. Then, reasons for secrecy were far more credible. The main agenda for much of the …
While the news about Bombardier is very welcome, a note of caution is also due. Boeing is not taking it lying down. Again, though Bombardier are saying that a new C-series production line in Alabama means expansion of C-series production as a whole, there are bound to be fears that Bombardier/Airbus may eventually switch some production to Alabama at the expense of Belfast if sales forecasts don’t materialise. However the Chinese are said to be interested in the project. And …
So the target date for either direct rule or an agreement to revive the Executive has slipped for another week at least. What a surprise! We were told by the two governments yet again that ” progress” had been made, but this has been slapped down by the DUP. Sinn Fein’s agenda as far as I know it is not inherently unfeasible. The problem is that it’s Sinn Fein who’s running with it. Crafty old Gerry for false-footing the DUP? Or …
Irish Times Brussels correspondent Patrick Smyth demolishes the option of a border down the Irish Sea – not just because the UK government and the unionists won’t have it – but because it is against the economic interests of the Republic. This assessment follows the leaking of a report by the Office of the Irish Revenue Commissioners saying that an invisible border on the island is “impossible”. “It is probably somewhat naive to believe that a new and entirely unique …
In an article in the Guardian prescribing on the Catalonian crisis, Gerry Adams strives to put himself on the right side of history and apply lessons from our own peace process. Thus far, the Spanish government is refusing to open a dialogue without the Catalans acquiescing to preconditions, including an acceptance that any talk of independence is illegal under Spanish law. In a conversation I had on Thursday evening with the Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, he assured me that the …
Many commentators on the Brexit negotiations, including Irish ones scarred by the diktat of the 2010 bailout and understandably opposed to the whole idea, talk as if the EU Commission’s stance is not only immutable but deserves the status of Holy Writ, while the British position is purely faction-ridden and pathetic. The contrast is too stark. There is no absolute logic to the EU’s making an adamantine sticking point out of of undefined “sufficient progress” on UK financial contributions, citizenship …
Patrick Murphy’s apt question in the Irish News. “ Why do we think Dublin would be any better than running the North than London?” prompts the even more basic question:. What sort of new Dublin “input” is wanted or even necessary? Later this month, “Direct Rule” in whatever guise would in key respects be inevitably different from the direct rule of 1972 when the two sovereign states had barely begun to cooperate. Today, the British- Irish relationship through governments and …
The Irish Times is trumpeting “ breakthrough” in the Brexit talks over guaranteeing to preserve free movement of all European Union citizens between Ireland and Britain. But the headline oversells the overall story which dwells on the absence of breakthrough. . In truth ” free movement for EU citizens” was bound to be the result for the future of the Common Travel Area although the British have been making a meal of it and should have agreed it months ago, to start …
While not exactly a flood tide, the case for Irexit made by economist Ray Kinsella has become a trickle of two. With a few distinguished exceptions, “official” Ireland has bought into the “spin”’. It has made the European Union the custodian of our national interests. It has ceded its responsibility for negotiations on our future relationship with our nearest neighbour and largest single-country trading partner. This makes no sense. The risks of trading the approval of “Europe” for the long-term interests of …
Fintan O’Toole has been treating us to splendid summer of seminal articles that give the lie to the idea of a silly season. Today he offers the thought that in an echo of the old Churchill phrase, the parishes of Fermanagh and Tyrone are unravelling Brexit. While the image draws us in, it is also slightly forced. I’ve just returned from a break in Fermanagh which included a visit down the Marble Arch Caves. The system, if not the section …
Stand by for a round of attacks by the Tories on Labour for their dramatic shift to a clearer Brexit policy of remaining within the single market and the customs union for a time “as short as possible, but as long as is necessary”. But behind the sound and fury, look carefully too for signs of a split or “nuances” within Conservative ranks. More than ever, Brexit will either become the clear differentiator between the two main parties or create …
It’s clear already that the options easiest to negotiate with the EU in the UK position papers on customs and the Irish border are those which cross UK red lines and point to a soft Brexit by any other name. But this is far from the end of the story. The Institute for Government which has close links with Whitehall warns that free trade proposals will have to emerge first before we know how what sort of runners they really …
