Brexit

Agribusiness post Brexit should be a concern to all of us not just the farming community…

| Readers 687

The sands of the Brexit egg timer are running down on whether we have a hard or soft boiled outcome, either way, the industry which will be most scrambled by the outcome is agri food. Approximately half of the EU budget has historically been spent on subsidising this industry, almost every farm on every road from Aughnacloy to Athens has been in receipt of a cheque as well as tariff protections which have kept them in business for living memory. …

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The EU as much as the British, should not use the Irish border as a a pawn in the Brexit negotiations, and must move on

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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 …

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Is Labour’s dramatic shift on Brexit at the top of a slippery slope to remaining within the EU?

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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 …

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Republicanism needs to find its own civic core and make an appeal outside terms of religion.

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This interesting discussion on Talkback featuring our own David McCann was sparked by Graham Gudgin’s impassioned OpEd plea in the Irish Times yesterday. Here’s the pinch-point: If I was to ask a woman to begin a relationship and then refuse to take no for an answer, week after week, year after year, it would of course count as harassment. Article after article on Irish unity, when the answer is always the same, should be seen in the same light. The …

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Irish national interests and “…the intolerable consequences of a disorderly Brexit.”

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The deeply unsentimental Brendan Keenan is always worth reading, especially on Brexit: When Remain Chancellor Philip Hammond and Brexit ministers Liam Fox and Michael Gove issued a statement saying the UK would indeed leave both the customs union and the single market, it looked like a hardening of the position. It certainly showed Mr Hammond positioning himself for the party leadership. But the statement had all three in favour of a transitional arrangement after formal exit in 2019. That is …

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Eastwood “I still know that the constitutional position will not be changed overnight even in with the upheaval caused by Brexit”

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SDLP Leader, Colum Eastwood gave an address to the D’Arcy McGee Summer School on Brexit and he made some interesting comments about how Unionist parties view comments on this subject from Nationalist leaders; I am conscious that unionism’s kneejerk reaction to this kind of language will be naturally defensive and some will automatically assume that I am speaking about some sort of sudden re-unification to avoid Brexit. Let me be clear – I am not. Of course my view as an …

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Only when they negotiate on trade will we know how the UK plans for customs and the border will fly

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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 …

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Some bold solutions, several welcome “principles” on dealing with the Irish border. The British paper in full is a serious document

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The British paper on the border is at last the meaty  document  long called for. It makes a several  bold and practical suggestions for a seamless border  but leaves much up in the air, laying down “ principles” for future negotiations. Many of these  go far beyond the Irish border issues to the heart of Brexit itself.  This is why the Irish  foreign minister Simon Coveney thinks he smells a rat, warning almost immediately that Ireland will not become a …

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If there is to be a hard border, it will be the EU that imposes it, say the British

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No surprise then that little new has emerged in the British paper on the border. It’s right that as we shape the unprecedented model, we have some very clear principles. Top of our list is to agree upfront no physical border infrastructure – that would mean a return to the border posts of the past and is completely unacceptable to the UK.” What has become a bit clearer is a key point that the expected chorus of  critics from British …

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More than a hint of things to come on the Irish border

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Once this period expires, the UK will look to agree either a “highly streamlined” border with the EU, or a new “partnership” with no customs border at all. This is the most optimistic reading of London’s proposal for “a temporary customs union.” introduced by David.  It gives a pretty broad clue of what they’ll propose shortly for the Irish border. The customs  proposal has met with circumspect replies from Brussels ans Dublin. Something more meaty is bound to greet the …

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UK Government publishes its Customs Union proposals

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The UK Government has begun producing a serious of papers outlining its post-Brexit vision for relations between the UK and the European Union. The 14 page document outlines how the UK will seek a transitional period before attempting to set up a system that gives it basically the same access that it has now. There are some Northern Ireland specific proposals, but a paper deal specifically with this issues will be published at a later stage, but back to customs. …

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No Irish unity to be got from leaning on the idle end of a long handled shovel

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Fintan O’Toole in the Irish Times has something useful to say on the matter of Sinn Fein’s latest push for a United Ireland. (Remember how we were told last June’s general election was to be a poll on whether to have a border poll?) In particular, this: In the context of Ireland’s future, 50 per cent + 1 is not, as Adams claims, “what democracy is about”. That kind of crude, tribal majoritarianism is precisely what the Belfast Agreement is …

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More than a wider vision of unionism is needed to take us through Brexit

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This article in the Belfast Telegraph by John Wilson Foster is an honourable fret about unionist identity in the light of Brexit.  Foster’s answer to the problems of Brexit appears to lie in the creation of  a wider unionism closer to British norms. So far so good, but only so far.  In his own terms Foster poses the familiar question that has puzzled unionists forever: why is Irish nationalism viewed as   “good” and Ulster “nationalism” bad? One sentiment is permissible, …

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The UK proposals on the border likely to underwhelm, as the Ref 2 debate hots up

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Theresa May has had  the temporary excuse of being on holiday to explain away the continuing churn over Brexit inside and outside the government. No more. She returns from holiday this week. Little to comfort her awaits.  Rather than a produce a rallying cry the promised publication of several major Brexit policy documents by midweek is likely  to give both sides of the debate more ammunition to throw at each other. By themselves they cannot constitute  a coherent strategy. But …

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Major survey shows deep confusion in UK opinion over Brexit

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Extracts  from the BuzzFeed report Many Remain voters now largely agree that Brexit should mean the UK taking full control over its borders, leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, and paying only a small “divorce bill” to the EU, according to major new academic research. A groundbreaking project by the London School of Economics and Oxford University surveying more than 3,000 people – which BuzzFeed News has seen exclusively ahead of its official publication – reveals that …

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Active north-south cooperation would be the intelligent unionist response to Sinn Fein’s vision of unity out of Brexit

| Readers 1973

There has been a delayed reaction of critical comment on the Oireacthas report on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in the light of Brexit. The report called for special status for Northern Ireland within the EU but coupled it with a drive to work for unionist consent to a united Ireland. This would include a new New Ireland Forum of the type held in the early 1980s which recognised unionist Britishness but was repudiated by Fianna Fail and …

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British position papers on customs union and Northern Ireland imminent – Politico website exclusive

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Britain is about to show its hand in Brexit negotiations in plans that reveal the U.K. wants a smooth route out of the European Union. The U.K. will seek a transitional customs agreement with the EU before moving to a new permanent relationship under plans sent to relevant members of Theresa May’s Cabinet for agreement before being published later this month, according to senior government officials. The proposal — if it is agreed politically — will be set out in an …

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Leo Varadkar: “we need to build more bridges and fewer borders”

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LEO VARADKAR delivered a robust but polite lecture at Queen’s University Belfast this morning, his first public engagement in Northern Ireland in his new role as Taoiseach. The artfully crafted speech quoted local poets and Winston Churchill as well as ending with a positive story that echoed something he’d recently heard Jeffrey Donaldson say in Dublin. This was not a speech that intended to be divisive. It offered a partial policy framework, but very little in the way of absolute red lines or dogmatic solutions. However, they were definitely not the words of a political pushover.

Trouble with Referendums: who is accountable for its delivery?

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Nick Cohen makes a point I shared privately with several Leave friends during the EU Referendum campaign last year: Vote Leave dissolved as soon as the contest was won. The referendum thus dispensed with the most basic democratic requirements. The winners were not accountable for the promises they made. In their history of the campaign, Jason Farrell and Paul Goldsmith quote the Leave campaigner Gisela Stuart saying that she thought the referendum was an ‘abuse of democracy’ because no one who …

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Report examining Brexit and a United Ireland launched

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The Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement launched a report today entitled  Brexit and the Future of Ireland Uniting Ireland & Its People in Peace & Prosperity.  The report examines issues around Brexit and the a United Ireland and is a lengthy document. Here are some of the key recommendations from the committee; On Brexit The Irish government must negotiate for Northern Ireland to be designated with special status within the EU and for the whole …

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