Brexit

Splits widen in May’s cabinet and party as Varadakar comes closer to backing Hammond’s version of a soft Brexit

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Brexit politics is hotting up amid the snows of Davos. The Brexiteer house paper the Daily Telegraph reports remarks from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar taking a soft Brexit line close to Chancellor Philip Hammond’s in the Swiss resort.  Hammond is the key figure here. He has  lit the blue touch paper to ignite the Tory right and  earned himself a rebuke from a No 10 which is trying to damp down the first flickers of new surge against Theresa May’s weak …

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Implications of Brexit for Northern Ireland: Have your Say…

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When it comes to looking at the implications of Brexit for Northern Ireland, the BrexitLawNI project has been out and about gathering information about the concerns of people living in Northern Ireland. Townhall-style events have taken place in Belfast, Derry and Enniskillen, with more events scheduled next month. BrexitLawNI is a collaborative research project between the Law Schools at Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University as well as the region’s leading human rights organisation, the Committee for the Administration of …

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One thing that unionists might want

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In a previous article, I made the bold assertion that “Nationalism has nothing that Unionism wants”. What I should have said was “Northern Nationalism has nothing that Unionism wants, and Nationalism in general has nothing that Unionism wants… yet”. While Northern Nationalism may still not have much to attract Unionism, after 30th March next year the Republic will have something that unionists may quickly find themselves jealous of. MEPs. While their colleagues in Stormont and Westminster get seemingly endless airtime, …

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Arlene Foster spoke no empty words. The road to renewed cross community cooperation may run through Dublin and Brussels

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Arlene Foster’s demarche surely marks a truce or even peace  between the Irish government and the DUP in the squabbles over Brexit. It will also  consolidate Dublin’s  improving  relations with Westminster. All this is welcome. Neither wants a hard land border on the island or trade barriers between the Republic and Great Britain. It was just that Dublin’s priority was elevating no hard border to a position of veto over the UK government’s whole strategy, while the DUP had a …

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” Change should not be allowed to weaken the relationships so painstakingly put together across these British Isles. “

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DUP Leader Rt. Hon. Arlene Foster MLA speaking at the inaugural Killarney Economic Conference this morning. Whilst the referendum was a vote by the British people, the ripples that flow from the referendum result will be far reaching with long-term implications for people well beyond the shores of the United Kingdom.  And I appreciate and understand that nowhere will be more impacted by the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union than Ireland.  I grew up only a few miles from …

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“As with the hardest essay questions, there is no right answer but many wrong ones.”

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Writing in the Guardian, “former Downing Street Brexit spokesperson”, Matthew O’Toole [no relation – Ed] has some intelligent, and interesting, things to say about “the psychology of imagined identity” here, and the task facing the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Karen Bradley, as well as the UK Prime Minister in the next phase of the Brexit negotiations. [Definitely no relation! – Ed] From the Guardian article As Bradley will discover, Brexit has unsettled one of the most intangible but …

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PM Tess and Good Queen Bess

| Readers 2018

Theresa May has made much of being a vicar’s daughter in seeking to build her image. Less remarked on is that she is from a particular sub-tradition within the Church of England, and so deeply formed by it that its particular take on English history will shape how she sees the UK’s relationship with mainland Europe. In thinking about Brexit, she must inevitably perceive echoes of the last time England was so bitterly riven about its identity and destiny, in …

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Where do we put Ulster’s Irish passport office?

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Holding an Irish passport has become quite the statement. Since the Brexit vote applications have surged for a number of reasons including re-asserting an Irish identity in Britain and the north respectively. Also by Britons that want to hold on to their European Union citizenship. Dagmar Schiek, Professor of Law at Queen’s University Belfast said that “The British in Northern Ireland who do not also opt for Irish citizenship would be worse off after Brexit,”  Bearers of these little red books …

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Poll records another jump in support for Irish Unity

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A new poll out today conducted by Ireland Thinks for the Irish Daily Mail has recorded a jump in support in voters in the South f0r Irish Unity. Ireland Thinks interviewed a random sample of 1,144 adults aged 18+ by telephone between Thursday 14th December and Friday 22nd December 2017. This group carried out a similar poll in March this year. Respondents were asked the following question; If it cost the Irish government €9 billion per annum for Northern Ireland …

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Slugger TV; Reviewing the year in politics

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My panel this month was Brendan Hughes (Irish News), Kellie Turtle (Feminist Commentator) & our own Alan Meban. We reviewed the year in politics looking at the most over-reported and under reported stories of the year, as well as the politicians to watch. Slugger TV will be returning in January 2018. Our thanks to NVTV who have helped us put this together. David McCannDavid McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on …

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Coveney says there is a need to repair relations with the DUP

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Government needs to repair relationship with the DUP – Tánaiste @simoncoveney tells #twip pic.twitter.com/KGnv3gxOqj — The Week in Politics (@rtetwip) December 17, 2017 This comes after the Fianna Fail Leader, Michael Martin raised some concerns about the Irish governments strategy in an interview with JOE.ie; The problem with, what Martin calls the government’s “megaphone diplomacy” and the “weakening of the back channels between the leaders of Ireland and the UK”, is that the government is playing well at home but …

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“The prospect written between the lines of this week’s letter is of Sinn Féin sidelining itself….”

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I Newton Emerson points out the irony of that letter Chris blogged the other day, signed by 200 members of nationalist civil society. “We appeal urgently to you Taoiseach,” it concludes, “and to the Irish Government, to reassure us of your commitment to stand for equality and a human-rights based society and your determination to secure and protect the rights of all citizens in the North of Ireland. ” Varadkar’s office responded promptly by saying the way to address these issues …

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‘Specific solutions’ & ‘distinct arrangements’: more of the same for post-Brexit NI?

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In the space of a few carefully-worded paragraphs, the Joint Report issued by the UK and EU on Friday has managed to utterly transform the prospects for Northern Ireland after Brexit.   The UK-EU Joint Report The UK has offered surety for maintaining an open Irish border, promising to maintain wide-ranging alignment with EU rules covering every aspect of the 1998 Agreement, north/south and east/west. Moreover, it has asserted that Northern Ireland will ultimately have the right to decide for …

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We are so used to seeing Northern Ireland politics as a zero-sum game that it’s hard to acknowledge a political deal which might benefit everyone.

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Jon Tonge is a Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool. He is the author of The Democratic Unionist Party: From Protest to Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press. We are so used to seeing Northern Ireland politics as a zero-sum game that it’s hard to acknowledge a political deal which might benefit everyone. That might partially explain why the endorsement of Friday’s Phase 1 Brexit agreement. Amid the ambiguity and verbiage what was tentatively and sensibly proposed was a …

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Unionist assurances come with a sacrifice of certainty…

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Amidst all the hype, some reality from Irish Times veteran, Paddy Smith… The Northern Ireland provisions of the agreement signed on Friday morning between the European Commission and the UK sacrifice a degree of certainty about how the frictionless Border will be sustained for reassurances to the unionist community that they will not be treated apart from the rest of the UK. Unless, that is, the UK achieves its objective in the trade talks of securing a free trade agreement …

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“The fact that all of the other parties in the Dáil rallied around to wave the green flag on Tuesday demonstrates not that the Government got it right but that it successfully pandered to populist sentiment”

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In the Irish Times, Stephen Collins on the risks involved in the Irish Government’s public positioning over the ongoing Brexit negotiations.  From the Irish Times article The British government and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) are the ones primarily responsible for Monday’s debacle, but the Irish Government didn’t exactly cover itself in glory. The way Tánaiste Simon Coveney jumped the gun with a premature radio interview on Monday morning and the subsequent mood music suggesting that the Irish side had …

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Lucid Talk poll shows support for special status & strong support for the DUP & Sinn Fein

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Lucid Talk released a poll today (commissioned by the GUE/NGL group in the EU Parliament). They have some really interesting findings. Broken down into those who identify as Unionist or Nationalists; Another interesting statistic from the poll is the current levels of party support in Northern Ireland (Good news for the DUP & Sinn Fein); Some Thoughts Obviously it’s one poll and the usual caveats apply about a simple snap shot in time. The level of support for Irish reunification …

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Brexit and the British Empire

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A spectre is haunting Europe. No, not that one. An uglier, messier one by far; the spectre of Empire. And if Europe is the haunted house in this metaphor, the UK is the creaking stairway where the spectre appears, Northern Ireland where you fancy you can hear it whisper in your ear. Brexit has shone a light on a lot of long hidden corners of the British psyche, none so alarming as the anti-Irish sentiment that has appeared since Taoiseach …

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May suggestion that Phase One can roll into Phase Two is not compliant with A50…

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Interesting development, coming in on the heel of the news that the British PM failed to share with the DUP, turns out that no only has Mrs May not told Mrs Foster what she was planning, she also has yet to discuss the matter of what sort of Brexit she wants with the Cabinet. That suggests she’s going to have major problems hammering this together. More concerning from an Irish point of view, she seems to think that “nothing is …

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“I never could, and still cannot all these months later, get any clarity on how exactly we proposed to take back control”

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The MP for North Down, Lady Hermon (the only pro-Remain voice within the Commons chamber from Northern Ireland) delivered a passionate speech today about the Good Friday Agreement and the process of leaving the European Union. There has been some focus on the encounter with Nigel Dodds but some other noteworthy exchanges are here; Let me say ever so loudly and strongly to senior members of the Conservative party that I do not want to hear them or see them …

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