Brian Walker 
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Archbishops’ letter image. FT The off- on- off again dance around the final stages of Brexit negotiations is taking place against a mounting clamour of confusion and anger over the crazy politics including the real implications of the threatened No Deal, about which the UK government postures so insouciantly. UK in a Changing Europe think tank says their modelling with the LSE of the impact of a no-deal Brexit suggests the total cost to the UK economy over the longer …
Photo:The Scotsman Only in corridors of power in London has the latest opinion poll on support for Scottish independence registered a modicum of shock to disturb the prevailing confusion. The analysis of the results by Sir John Curtice contains only one small note of comfort for the Union cause. A new poll from Ipsos MORI for STV has suggested that 58% now say that they would vote Yes in another independence referendum. Just 42% state that they would vote No, and thereby …
The idea of extended deadlines right down to a supposed last minute will hardly surprise anybody in Northern Ireland. We’ve lived with them for a generation. Taking a tour round comment on the Brexit cliffhanger, the prospects for a deal are looking good. British predictions of going to the wire for a decision by the big beasts of Merkel and Macron look like being fulfilled. But that doesn’t mean an optimal deal for British interests. From Peston The odds of …
Painfully and suddenly all in a rush, under pressure of the Covid pandemic we’re witnessing the development of power sharing throughout England that has wider implications for the whole UK. The pandemic will stretch well into next year. The infection rate is about to equal or exceed last March’s. The strains imposed on government and by government are tightening. From having a rate of infection per 100,000 people of 11.4 in the week up to August 15, well below the …
In 2019, with the Assembly still under suspension the British government launched a consultation on introducing elective abortion. In the Assembly’s absence Westminster enacted legislation on a free vote opposed mainly by the DUP.1 The context was less about Northern Ireland, more about an anti- Brexit majority moving enough business to keep Parliament open and avoid leaving the EU by default . But the measure passed by an impressive cross party majority in the name of equal rights throughout the …
Derek Mahon struggled with an intellectual ambition unexcelled by his Ulster contemporaries, elevating the commonplace into grandeur and striking the contemporary notes of recognition that draw us in. It’s uncanny how that late poem “Everything is Going to All Right,” has shed light on darkness during the pandemic, just as it has been adopted to ease the first shock of suicide for the bereaved. In hands such as Mahon’s, the commonplace phrases are the hand holds that begin to pull …
Briefing on the Brexit negotiations is growing more intense. From the British side, hopes of a breakthrough are reported by the political editor of the Spectator James Forsyth. Inevitably this translates into a British claim that the EU are at last bending on their hitherto implacable insistence on full UK compliance with the Withdrawal Agreement including the Protocol, and the withdrawal of the offending parts of the Internal Market Bill. The EU side are briefing differently but not quite incompatibly; …
From the Guardian Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove told MPs today that lorry drivers would need a “Kent Access Permit” to get into the county from 1 January with “police and ANPR cameras [automatic number plate recognition]” enforcing the system. If they failed, they faced queues of up to 700 trucks trying to reach Dover. Under government plans in a leaked document KAPs will only be issued to drivers who have completed all the paperwork necessary to board …
The idea that the new Overseas Operations Bill gives serving and former soldiers immunity against prosecution even for torture is in dispute. It’s claimed that the proposed legislation would create a “triple lock” for troops and veterans, including a presumption against prosecution for alleged offences committed more than five years ago.The bill also proposes to introduce time limits on bringing civil claims in connection with overseas operations; and would place a duty on the government to consider derogating from the …
Fintan O’Toole has written another of his entertaining essays trying to get to the bottom of why the UK and the English in particular are behaving like lemmings throwing themselves over a cliff over Brexit. In the Irish Times today he comes with up “England as Ireland.” The big problem with English nationalism is that it is naïve. Because it has been buried for centuries under two layers of disguise – the United Kingdom and the British Empire – it …
Demo in Place de la Républic, Paris As is only to be expected, Chris Donnelly in the Irish News plays the full anti imperialist card against the UK, without regard to variations of interpretation. He uses a French quotation approvingly as if the French were purely the idealists of the Rights of Man and that the revolution had no downside such as the ruinous attempt to conquer all Europe and the French Empire never existed. All major states were born …
The roller coaster continues. In its story today the Times slips in unattributably Johnson’s terms for a deal. The right of government to subsidise company development is the Trojan horse that has emerged as the biggest obstacle to a deal because it continues to apply to GB as well as NI, leaving a remnant of EU regulation at the heart of the UK that the sovereignty zealots find intolerable. On this apparently esoteric topic depends much of the future character …
I don’t doubt that UK ministers want a free trade deal and more with the EU. But rather than agree a comprehensive deal on what they regard as the EU terms, they are insisting on defining the terms of resumed British sovereignty first and proposing to bounce their unilateral decisions off the EU case by case as issues arise. The procedure for this is the EU/UK joint committee created by the Withdrawal Agreement which is meeting today. There is also …
The Protocol is a pawn on a bigger game; to remove any trace of involvement by the European Court of Justice in ruling on applications for state aid for ailing or new industries . While that would remain the rule for Northern Ireland firms, it leeches into GB firms who invest or have branches in the North. And that breaches a cardinal Leave principle, of no involvement by the Court in GB affairs. There is surely another a Leave issue …
The alarm has been raised. And while it would be a great mistake to declare it false, it has been followed by calls for calm. The Withdrawal agreement is not about to be torn up and the GFA (according to some interpretations) with it. Rather it’s all about creating smooth passage across the Irish Sea. We’re back at the centre of attention. Really? Surely by signing into national and international law the Withdrawal Agreement with its Ireland/NI Protocol the UK …
dFM Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin Has Martina Anderson’s outburst distracted attention away from the substantive issue of the legacy payments deadlock, or given a boost to resolving it, following the court case requiring Michelle O’Neill in effect to remove her veto or exercise her option to resign? The scheme covers violence related to the Northern Ireland Troubles between 1966 and 2010, including incidents in Great Britain and Europe.. . People will get between £2,000 and £10,000 a year for the …
