EU – Slugger O'Toole

Riots in Northern Ireland: this is also about racism

Sarah Creighton on June 15, 2026, 2:21 pm

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My dad died two days before Christmas in 2023. On the day of his funeral rain poured from the heavens. We waded through thick mud to get to his grave. “Christ,” my brother remarked, “it’s like the f**king Somme.” In Northern Ireland, protestant burials are often small, private affairs. Only close family go and you must be invited to attend. When we arrived, we expected a small number of people. To our surprise, there was a crowd. My dad was …

An unavoidable truth : Irish Unity will be a brexit-style process

Brendan Heading on December 24, 2025, 4:29 pm

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On a recent speaking engagement, Fintan O’Toole made the observation of how important it is to avoid an Irish unity process that ends up like the brexit process. This is a wish that other analysts and political reps have also highlighted. Brexit shows, they argue, the need for adequate preparation. Northern nationalism has upped its rhetoric on this in recent months – SF has been running a time to prepare campaign, and its representatives issue a request for the …

“A European Future for Northern Ireland” – another SDLP stunt

Brendan Heading on June 1, 2025, 11:00 pm

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Late last week, we heard that the SDLP were putting a motion before the Assembly to call for a border poll. Looking at the order paper for Monday, I see the following motion tabled by the Leader of the Opposition : That this Assembly welcomes the positive step forward represented by the UK-EU deal of 19 May 2025; affirms that any arrangement which reduces friction for businesses is welcomed; supports further alignment between the UK and EU including via a …

Farage isn’t your friend

Sarah Creighton on May 3, 2025, 9:04 am

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Every time I do a panel; there’s always a smart alec in the crowd. A man, usually. Without doubt he will say, “Yeah, but the British don’t care about you.” He thinks he’s the first person in the world to have this original thought. Yes, I always say, yes we know. I don’t know a single protestant in Northern Ireland that doesn’t. My grandparents knew. My great grandparents knew before them. It’s not my fault you’ve never spoken to a …

Requiem for a Dream

Gerry Lynch on December 9, 2024, 9:06 pm

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Today, the Netherlands reinstituted border checks with Germany and Belgium. The new policy, which will initially run for six months, aims “to combat migration and human-trafficking”. According to the EU, fourteen of the twenty-nine members of the Schengen passport-free travel area currently have some form of “temporary” border control; of these all but Malta’s relating to a major international conference feel at least semi-permanent, with Russian sabotage efforts and “risk of violent actions against Israeli citizens” cited by some countries …

Irish unity : a dead duck for the foreseeable future

Brendan Heading on December 2, 2024, 8:00 am

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As anyone following the coverage on RTÉ will have seen, the result of Friday’s Irish election is now becoming clear with the country on course to re-elect a variant of the FF-FG coalition. As of Sunday evening, the consensus is settling on an FF-led coalition with FG, with a few independents making up the numbers. While it will be a government dominated by the same parties, the dynamic will be different – FF’s parliamentary party seems to have more older …

Soapbox: Democracy is a Non-negotiable

Soapbox on July 12, 2024, 8:30 am

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dentist treating a patient

Dr Dan Boucher was the TUV/Reform UK candidate for Belfast South and Mid Down and is a former DUP Director of Policy and Research. We approached last week’s General Election on a very different basis to that of 12 December 2019. Back then, in Northern Ireland we enjoyed the right to stand for election to make all the laws to which we were subject. But since 1 January 2021 this right has been taken from us through the application of …

The claim that Sunak is overselling is oversold

Brian Walker on March 1, 2023, 1:01 pm

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If you object to any trace of the EU in Northern Ireland future affairs, look away now. Even Lord Frost who delivered the discredited Protocol isn’t quite with you. Sunak’s deal will help he admits “but it’s a bitter pill to swallow”. Whereas Sunak stresses NI ‘s recovery of UK sovereignty, Frost points out reasonably that the deal is so called because it is indeed a framework for applying EU law We are told that 1700 pages of EU law …

The DUP are struggling to find reasons of principle for continuing their Assembly boycott

Brian Walker on February 28, 2023, 6:07 pm

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Photo; The Irish Sea Many unionists are doing what unionists do, poring over a legal text. Not all of them may be clear in their own minds why they’re doing so. Looking for fresh evidence of betrayal or points that need improving? For one, Sam McBride has delivered a glass half empty exposure of Rishi Sunak’s bouncy oversell. The border in the Irish Sea may have been replaced by the green channel but it is alive and well in the …

The real choices emerging: implement a Protocol deal without unionist consent; or accept a DUP veto on the UK resetting its relations with the EU

Brian Walker on February 18, 2023, 1:52 pm

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24 hours on, the chances of success for Rishi Sunak’s mission are no clearer. Optimism however has the edge on the EU stage. As its cheerleader the FT describes it solving the Protocol quandary presages an entire reset of the UK’s future relations with the EU, quoting for instance the veteran diplomat Kim Darroch: It will make a real, positive, difference in Northern Ireland. It will stand up Sumac’s claim to be a problem solver. It will get us back …

Ireland’s 50 years of EU membership…

Frank Schnittger on February 13, 2023, 7:00 am

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brown and white concrete houses

I had the pleasure of attending the annual Irish Association of Contemporary European Studies (IACES) lecture given by Professor Brigid Laffan of the European University Institute recently. In the hour available to her she painted some broad strokes of how membership has helped change Ireland over the past 50 years. One striking statistic was that male life expectancy was 68 years when Ireland joined in 1973. If I had been my age then, I would be dead! 55% of our …

The Act of Disunion?

Sarah Creighton on February 11, 2023, 11:42 am

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The latest ruling from the Supreme Court should surprise no-one. The justices affirmed previous precedent and confirmed what was obvious: the Protocol was lawfully implemented. Since the ruling, there have been calls to ditch the Good Friday Agreement. Anti- Agreement unionists say the consent principle isn’t worth the paper it’s written on because it didn’t stop the Protocol If the Agreement should go because it’s useless, what does that say about the Act of Union? In its ruling, the Supreme …

A Cordon Sanitaire between the EU and UK…

Frank Schnittger on February 1, 2023, 7:00 am

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aerial photography of forest

Recent discussions about the Protocol in Northern Ireland have focused on the problems it poses for the DUP. But from an EU perspective it seeks to solve a far larger problem for the EU as a whole. Much of the analysis of Brexit has been in terms of it being an English nationalist project. What has been missed is the extent to which it is also a political libertarian project. Much of the driving force behind Brexiteer ideology has been …

Rather than keep slagging off the DUP over the Protocol, let’s recognise their better points

Brian Walker on January 23, 2023, 4:40 pm

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Nerves on all sides are stretched like skins on a drum waiting to see what emerges from the forthcoming Protocol negotiations. Every cautious word is parsed and construed for signs of progress or the lack of it. Make no mistake a big push is on for a positive outcome on two fronts; to end the deadlock in the relations between the UK and EU and to come up with enough to restore the DUP to the Assembly. Never mind the …

The Protocol and the Founding Principles of the EU…

Frank Schnittger on January 14, 2023, 9:03 am

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glass walled building during daytime

Treaties can be as dry as dust and as boring as old rope, which is why lawyers have to be paid to read them. But sometimes it is worthwhile to scan their more important provisions. This is how the 1957 Founding Treaty of Rome (official text not available in English), later consolidated and incorporated into The Treaty on the Functioning of The European Union describes its purpose on its very first page: PREAMBLE HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THE BELGIANS, …

EU Membership has been the making of Ireland…

Frank Schnittger on January 3, 2023, 8:39 am

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yellow and black star illustration

New Year’s Day marked the 50th. Anniversary of Ireland’s accession to the EU (then EEC), the single most transformative event in our 100 years of independence. Indeed, our post-independence history could be neatly divided into two periods, pre- and post-EU, although many would trace the origins of Ireland as a modern advanced economy to the Lemass reforms associated with Dr TK Whitaker’s seminal 1958 study, “Economic Development.” There aren’t any soldiers marching or trumpets blaring to mark the event, but …

The British and Irish governments mustn’t mess about. Time for Direct Rule by whatever name with Dublin support to tackle the cost of living crisis and move on to Assembly reform

Brian Walker on October 27, 2022, 2:05 pm

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We are teetering on a cliff edge of absurdity about calling an Assembly election “ nobody wants. ” From the DUP viewpoint Peter Robinson brilliantly describes the contradictions in every party’s position except his own. He might have added that it was Chris Heaton Harris and his cronies in the ERG who more than any other faction got us into this trouble in the first place by championing a Withdrawal Agreement with the Protocol attached under frankly false pretences. The …

The political class will have to work hard to prevent Northern Ireland coming off worse in the UK government meltdown

Brian Walker on October 14, 2022, 1:57 pm

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As we treasure long memories in this distinguished forum, I offer 1973-4 as the nearest parallel to the meltdown in government we face today. In the UK as a whole the miner’s strike in 1973 produced power cuts and a three day working week. Four months into ’74. Northern Ireland suffered its own exclusive version of power cuts all over again in the UWC strike, a loyalist revolt against the first fragile power sharing Executive that had been set up …

The pennies are dropping: the UK government are starting to face reality over their mini Budget and restoring the Executive

Brian Walker on October 3, 2022, 8:53 am

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By far the most important immediate question for Northern Ireland is how to prevent the constitutional question dominating politics even more than before, at the expense of delivering government for the people. Apart from threatening an Assembly election that would only increase instability, the British government has largely disqualified itself from influencing events in favour of a standoff over the Protocol, a problem they had exclusively had created. Beyond formal courtesies the vital essential relationship with the Republic went into …

Houses of sand: Unionism has a problem with younger voters. A huge one.

Sarah Creighton on September 24, 2022, 9:50 am

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Whither the union. I find myself becoming weary as I write this. Articles about the demise of the union, about unionist malaise and mistakes, are so common these days that they all sound the same. I stopped writing them at one point because I had nothing new to add. Even now, people write these pieces with a weird air of arrogance. They want you to know that they and they alone have figured out that unionism is in a difficult …