Brian Walker – Page 8 – Slugger O'Toole

The latest real world effects of the protocol standoff

Brian Walker on March 18, 2021, 12:00 pm

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There’s a mixed picture of trade in and out of both parts of Ireland, some of them temporary and perverse The good news? Via Sky News A lot of freight, up by 4.3% in February, is now sent from British ports to Northern Ireland on ferries and then driven down into Ireland. More goods are now moving between Britain and Belfast because freight can now be sent from Britain to Ireland through Northern Ireland without complex customs procedures. Ferry data analysed …

Behind the Paddy’s Day rituals, how deep is the Stormont crisis?

Brian Walker on March 18, 2021, 7:26 am

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With so much guff, bluff and ritual about it, St Patrick’s Day is a poor bellwether for judging the state of affairs in Ireland remotely – and perhaps no better on the spot either. One glance at privileged youff crowding Botanic Gardens in defiance of lockdown, you might have groaned with me: “ Not the Holylands again. “ However BBCNI’s news story was encouraging. St Patrick's Day: Police clear crowds at Belfast's Botanic Gardens https://t.co/Fp6LvjTOC8 — Darran Marshall (@DarranMarshall) March …

Boris Johnson has refused Arlene Foster on the protocol. Both governments and the EU should now get off their high horses and fix it.

Brian Walker on March 13, 2021, 2:19 pm

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Time was when prime ministers visited somewhere they used it as the backdrop to make a substantial speech about where they stood on the policy or move things along. Think back to Tony Blair’s “acts of completion”. Can you imagine Boris Johnson submitting himself to questions about his post Brexit and pro Union strategies? Nowadays it’s enough for Johnson to turn up for a box ticking exercise, high viz vested or in a white coat, elbows bumping, for a few …

No mention of the fantasy Irish Sea link in Johnson’s plan to link up the UK. Is he quietly ditching it already?

Brian Walker on March 10, 2021, 9:43 am

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The BBC is reporting that a feasibility study is being made into Boris Johnson’s crackpot scheme of a bridge or tunnel over the Irish Sea (with ample space for customs clearing stations no doubt). But intriguingly the prime minister makes no mention of it in an article he’s written for the Daily Telegraph announcing a new UK wide transport strategy “ to strengthen the very sinews of the UK.” Very odd that he makes no mention of his current pet …

Bloodlands, the latest Belfast noir they’re calling it. Please don’t all swarm to Strangford Lough

Brian Walker on February 22, 2021, 2:59 pm

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Are you hooked on Bloodlands? (Sundays 9 p.m. BBC 1, iPlayer top slot). If you haven’t it seen it yet I won’t spoil the Goliath reference. Jimmy Nesbitt is a grizzled PSNI detective Tom Brannick bridging a Disappeared angle with an Ulster Line of Duty. It’s the latest in the product line of creator Jed Mecurio’s love affair with making gripping TV series in Northern Ireland. Not quite as gripping as Line of Duty yet or as menacing and sophisticated …

Learning to live in harmony with the legacies of Empire. Different experiences in Great Britain and Ireland

Brian Walker on February 15, 2021, 8:55 pm

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In the culture wars over shifting national identities it’s striking how nationalist Ireland is further along the road to reconciliation with its troubled past than a UK has reached in its troubled present. That is a journey that feels as if it has barely begun. Perhaps all that righteous victimhood has become easier to cope than all that tortured guilt. BLM – Gladstone and Churchill off their pedestals The focus is turned on the role of Empire and in …

Arlene must tell us if she agrees with Peter Robinson’s option of Assembly withdrawal to fight the protocol

Brian Walker on February 12, 2021, 1:16 pm

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Peter Robinson under arrest at Clontibret 1986 Arlene Foster has all but declared the DUP’s lack of confidence in the UK government’s efforts to renegotiate the protocol. From the sidelines her predecessor Peter Robinson is tempting her to contemplate doing something more dramatic about it than protest. With his acute ear he has picked up the drumbeats not only from the DUP core but from the loyalist undergrowth. Cannily attempting to insure against taking the blame for another “flegs” debacle, …

Leading constitutional expert backs DUP objections to the Protocol

Brian Walker on February 6, 2021, 9:15 pm

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Prof Vernon Bogdanor Let us is suspend for a moment blaming the DUP for helping to saddle us with customs forms and phytosanitary checks at Belfast and Larne. Let us praise the SDLP and Alliance for looking for the bright side, at the competitive advantage NI business can enjoy NI to EU and GB if only the checks GB to NI are drastically reduced. Mitigation may yet be the name of the game. But now a thunderbolt has been hurled …

Authentic British and Irish patriotisms are needed. They are entirely compatible

Brian Walker on February 4, 2021, 5:54 pm

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Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”, declared Dr Johnson, in a typically ringing remark that for over two centuries has been deployed against states trailing memories of glory to repel criticism of today’s foreign adventures. Remember though that when Johnson died in 1784, Britain was in the throes of expulsion from her North American Colonies. Parliament was divided between the Tories lamenting loss and defeat and Whigs who made no bones about …

“To hell with the future and long live the past”. Allison Morris turns it around when contemplating a border poll. But has the EU Commission just changed the odds by uniting north and south against them ?

Brian Walker on January 29, 2021, 6:38 pm

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D The new Ulster University campus under construction In this year of different centenary commemorations north and south (sorry,”markings”), Allison Morris has written a terrifically interesting piece in the Irish News . When it comes to weighing the issues for a border poll, she raises the desire for a better life above the call of background, tradition and history, yes even the history of the Troubles. Without labouring the point, contrast this with the run of comment in the Newsletter …

It is intolerable that Stormont is handing back hundreds of millions of pounds to London when urgent cancer cases are being denied treatment

Brian Walker on January 25, 2021, 6:49 pm

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The news that 275 people in Northern Ireland with “red-flag” cancer have had their surgery cancelled in the past week has been followed by the tragic irony that the Health Service has been forced to hand back £90 million unspent this year to the Treasury in Whitehall . The dismal information reminds me of Irish farm produce being exported from Ireland during the Famine of the 1840s while more than a million starved. The theory behind it is even more …

UK breakup. The vacuum where the Union case should be stands exposed

Brian Walker on January 24, 2021, 12:07 pm

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Will the drum roll start for a border poll and wreck the prospects for even slim collaboration for dealing with the massive and more immediate challenges of Covid and Brexit – and just governing ? Or will it promote a virtuous competition between the DUP and Sinn Fein over which of them will be the better collaborator in government, with the hope of wooing the uncommitted to their existential cause? Will the minor parties get squeezed or flourish amid growing …

Perhaps London will wake up at last- and also let us in on how the Northern Ireland Secretary would exercise his discretion on calling a border poll

Brian Walker on January 23, 2021, 10:26 pm

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From the Times. Not a lot of extra comment is needed. By these measurements the narrowing margins should concentrate minds. Most concentration is inevitably focused on Scotland where Westminster has the constitutional veto absent in relation to Northern Ireland , where the Northern Ireland Secretary has the discretion to call a referendum which the Republic is obliged to follow concurrently. Here the interim report by academics in London, Belfast and Dublin on preparing for twin Irish referendums is well worth …

The real question for American militants on both sides, but mainly White : do you want to fight or not?

Brian Walker on January 23, 2021, 2:01 pm

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The more urgent question is not what has made America become so polarised but why it hasn’t broken out into continuous ethnic violence. The sight of “America’s burning” in police and race riots and all those weird white guys armed to the teeth add up to a potent threat, if episodes like Charlottesville and the Capitol storming are joined up into continuous action. The US’ s rhetoric of law and order so stoutly professed by Republicans in particular will …

Big Albert shines his light/ casts his shadow across the pond

Brian Walker on January 22, 2021, 12:33 pm

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I knew nothing of Under the Albert Clock until I spotted a review of the podcast in the New York Times no less. Creativity and performance defies the lockdown. American sponsorship and other interest is very welcome. Any reaction? The New York-based Origin Theater Company commissioned the series, asking five female playwrights in Northern Ireland to use as inspiration Belfast’s landmark Albert Memorial Clock (a monument to Queen Victoria’s husband, and thus a symbol of Britishness), and to place their …

Real world pressures are complicating neat arguments over unification

Brian Walker on January 21, 2021, 11:49 am

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I begin with more inexplicable partitionism from Dublin, as discussed by Newton who has a hawkeye for this subject “Genuine mystery surrounds the Irish Government’s lengthy refusal to share Covid passenger data with Northern Ireland. The Government will not explain it and nobody else can see what the issue might be. There is increasing urgency for a solution as Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland introduce negative Covid test requirements for travellers, with varying sets of self-isolation periods that cannot be …

Brexit blues and the future of the UK

Brian Walker on January 20, 2021, 1:10 pm

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Brian O’Neill beat me to it. George Osborne the thwarted crown prince of Tory politics called Theresa May “ a dead woman walking “ long before she lost the third meaningful vote. He was right there and he may turn to be right now. Amazing how defeated politicians turn into prophets. If you think you can see the right route at the fork in the road you have a 50% chance of being right in advance and 100% if you …

A more refreshing debate on Ireland’s future has just been ignited

Brian Walker on January 11, 2021, 11:58 am

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We are looking at a border poll within the next ten years, and reunification could happen within 20 years. I believe events will move a lot faster than any of us could ever envisage. Just look at Brexit, who could have predicted that five years ago? Brian O’Neill may be right or he may be wrong. But we need something more than speculation. A new debate has been ignited in the Irish Times. Prof Pete Shirlow goes for developing the …

What next after the interim report on Irish referendums?

Brian Walker on December 7, 2020, 6:31 pm

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A surprising initiative It’s a remarkable fact about the working group on Unification Referendums that it took an initiative led by London academics to start the process of setting rules for a possible outcome that has been the Irish obsession of centuries. The initiative was in part a reproach as to how politics particularly but not only in Northern Ireland is serving the public, partly an acknowledgement of the complexity of the issues where intensity of feeling can prevent people …

Confronting the issues of organising Unity referendums. Academics in London, Dublin and Belfast show the way. Will the politicians follow?

Brian Walker on December 1, 2020, 1:24 pm

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In addressing the existential core of politics north and south in Ireland, a working group of academics has laboured long on grappling with the issues on Referendums on Irish unity and delivered a modest proposal in the form of an “interim report”. But unlike Swift’s biting satire, theirs is an impeccably rational approach to procedural issues and the broad context for holding twin if not quite simultaneous referendums. They recommend as best option a model of what unity would look …