EU – Page 13 – Slugger O'Toole

Panic in government ranks as Corbyn opens talks with soft Brexit Tories about taking control away from May facing defeat next week

Brian Walker on March 6, 2019, 11:50 pm

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“Cox ‘s codpiece is empty” scoffed a leading Brexiteer tonight in a sign of hardening opinion against the Attorney General’s chances of success to secure a legal formula to satisfy the Tory right and the DUP. Ideas for a convoluted arbitration process now under discussion do not impress. By this reckoning the best that can he hoped for next week is a meaningful vote in favour of extending Article 50. If that happens Brexit is up for grabs. Tonight in …

Varadkar bids to make Durkan in effect MEP for Northern Ireland after Brexit

Brian Walker on March 5, 2019, 10:17 am

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Leo Varadkar has made the radical move to present Dublin voters with the choice of electing in effect former SDLP leader, deputy First minister and Foyle MP Mark Durkan as MEP for Northern Ireland, based in Dublin but significantly, still living in Derry. The bold move is, as Durkan himself admits , a ” bold ask” of Dublin voters and amounts to a modest alteration to the political balance on the island. However the big point is that it might …

Mark Durkan running for Europe … in Dublin for Fine Gael rather than Fianna Fáil #eu19 updated

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 4, 2019, 4:08 pm

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Mark Durkan is standing in a Dublin constituency as a Fine Gael candidate in May’s European elections. While the current SDLP leader Column Eastwood has thrown his party’s lot in with Fianna Fáil, Durkan is making his strategic partnership with their main rivals in a bid to return to active politics.

What lessons can we learn from the making of modern Switzerland?

Robert Campbell on March 2, 2019, 8:10 am

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Andrew Gallagher recently wrote an op-ed for Slugger (here) on the mechanics of Irish re-unification. This has become very topical following the UK’s Brexit referendum, with a feeling that ‘the harder the Brexit, the more likely is a border poll and reunification’. While readers of Slugger will have been only too aware of the potential problems that Brexit would bring, there was a very considerable lack of understanding in Britain, and particularly in England; there it was a ‘remote’ issue. …

Ards and North Down Declare Climate Emergency

Claire Mitchell on February 28, 2019, 8:02 pm

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Yesterday, on 27th February 2019, an eerily summery winter evening, Ards and North Down Borough Council passed Northern Ireland’s first Climate Emergency motion. Led by Green Party councillors Rachel Woods and Barry McKee, the motion was agreed without changes in a full meeting of the Council chamber. This comes not a moment too soon for a region which is set to face major challenges over the next 10-20 years as temperatures, and sea-levels, rise. Parts of the Ards peninsula, along …

An Amber warning of revolt is delivered as May’s Brexit strategy implodes. A new Battle of Britain is about to begin

Brian Walker on February 23, 2019, 12:00 am

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This sort of thing just doesn’t happen in the British political system – a cabinet ultimatum to the prime minister delivered in the Daily Mail If we don’t get a deal next week we MUST delay Brexit’: MPs Amber Rudd, Greg Clark and David Gauke appeal for Tory unity as party is engulfed by bitter in-fighting By David Gauke, Amber Rudd and Greg Clark for the Daily Mail Once the deal is passed, the benefits will be felt nationally. Optimism …

The Overton Conveyor

Andrew Gallagher on February 22, 2019, 6:22 pm

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With five weeks to go until Brexit, it is worth stepping back and taking stock of what has happened in the last three years. Shortly after the referendum, I wrote a post here outlining the possible scenarios, together with my (subjective) opinion of their likelihood. It is immediately noticeable that “No Deal by reason of staggering incompetence” did not even make the list; if I were to write that piece again today it would be the clear front runner. I …

In letting the Brexit crisis mount so high, you’d think we were in the early Middle Ages

Brian Walker on February 22, 2019, 11:10 am

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It’s become just like the filioque controversy that led to Great Schism of 1054 don’t you think? You know, when the Roman church tried to foist a change of theology on the Orthodox Greeks of Constantinople. In what became the Nicene Creed the Romans insisted on the Holy Spirit “proceeding from the Father and the Son. But the Greeks weren’t having any of “the Son” business, (“filioque” being Latin for “and the son” for all you ignorant Prods.) And never …

Northern Ireland could be caught in a tariff trap imposed by a British minister. How can such a muddle be avoided in future?

Brian Walker on February 21, 2019, 1:04 pm

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Whatever that latter day Rumpole attorney general Geoffrey Cox comes up with by way of alternative arrangements to try to seal the withdrawal deal at Sharm el Sheikh at the weekend, Northern Ireland’s own arrangements are the least likely to be replaced, as the Irish Times’ Denis Staunton has warned. and is bound to cast fresh doubt on the DUP’s support for a revised deal. (Attorney General) Cox wants the EU to make explicit the temporary nature of …

Can May hold it together or enough defectors pull it apart to strike a deal by 29 March?

Brian Walker on February 20, 2019, 4:35 pm

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British politics has reached the surreal stage as the No Deal deadline approaches. Although aware of the mounting panic at the prospect of No Deal in the real world, they seem too absorbed by their own battles and intrigues to rise to the level of events and be relied on to meet their self imposed deadline of 29 March. Or else like most of us they secretly believe the other guy will do it for them, the EU, a cross …

Three Tory MPs Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen join the Labour breakaway group…

Brian O'Neill on February 20, 2019, 11:31 am

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This is interesting, three pro remain Tory MPs have joined the Labour breakaway group, will more follow? From the BBC: Three Tory MPs have resigned from party over its “shift to the right”. Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen wrote a joint letter to Theresa May to confirm their departure. The pro-Remain trio will join the new Independent Group – made up of eight Labour MPs who resigned from their party over its handling of Brexit and anti-Semitism. In …

Why do some people have such a problem with the Irish Backstop?

Victoria Hewson on February 16, 2019, 2:02 pm

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It has been widely suggested that the DUP and others are misconceived (or worse) in their opposition to the backstop laid out in a protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement agreed by negotiators in November last year. What’s the big problem with “extra checks at Northern Ireland’s seaports and airports” asked David Green in a Spectator blog. In the Times, Northern Irish businessman Mark O’Connell noted that “With so many existing differences already in the law between Northern Ireland and the …

A handbag

Andrew Gallagher on February 14, 2019, 6:26 pm

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Brexit has been sold to the people as the UK retaking its place as a world leader, but its shambolic execution has instead shown that the UK’s place as a world leader is largely an illusion based more on expectation and bravado than on any underlying capability. The incompetence of its leaders has been laid bare as grand promise after grand promise has turned out to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Over everything hangs the ghost of Margaret …

Things fall apart… but if a new centre is forming, it’s more like a rough beast at the moment

Brian Walker on February 14, 2019, 8:46 am

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As Mrs May faces another defeat … on the Conservative side.. Hardline Brexit supporters are threatening to inflict yet another Commons defeat on Theresa May because they fear the government is effectively ruling out leaving the EU with no deal. Members of the Tory European Research Group are unhappy with the wording of a No 10 motion because it endorses parliament’s vote against any Brexit without a withdrawal agreement. The motion for debate on Thursday simply affirms “the approach to leaving the EU” backed …

UK Media Must Up Its Game

Chris McKee on February 13, 2019, 9:52 am

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Here’s a question for future historians: will the UK media be blamed as much as its politicians, should Brexit really hit the skids in just a few weeks’ time? If not, it really should. Take one story as an example from the weekend: Jacob Rees-Mogg’s fanciful suggestion that a £13.8m shipping contract awarded by the UK Government as part of its emergency No Deal preparations may have collapsed from political pressure from notoriously anti-business Leo Varadkar. The premise? Arklow Shipping Limited, the …

Rumbled! Theresa May’s secret plan to extend Article 50 and stay close to the customs union long term.

Brian Walker on February 13, 2019, 12:28 am

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Theresa May will not mind being forced to extend Article 50 in fifteen day’s time by a cross parliamentary vote, if Tory Brexiteers try to veto whatever she brings back from Brussels. Long suspected as inevitable despite her constant denials, the evidence for this comes – would you believe it ? from that old faithful of hacks’ sources,” overheard in a bar” – in this case by ITN correspondent in Brussels , Angus Walker. Last night, I’d been reporting …

Theresa May is prepared to go right to the brink. The Remainers’ last chance is 27 February

Brian Walker on February 12, 2019, 6:27 pm

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Against most expectations, Theresa May has all but abandoned any effort to strike a cross party agreement with the Labour front bench. To concentrate minds, a cliff hanging finale as late as 26 March – three days before Leave day – is now looking likely. You don’t need to get into her head to come to this conclusion. It’s nakedly obvious from her statement and the exchanges in the Commons today. She’s challenging all sides who so decisively turned down …

Jeffrey Donaldson: “Now is not a time for brinkmanship but for leadership.”

Mick Fealty on February 11, 2019, 8:45 am

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Good to see the DUP deploy Jeffrey Donaldson to the southern space. His oped in the Sunday Independent is probably the most upbeat note to come out of the DUP in some time. He acknowledges that the last few years have damaged relations on the island: The absence of the political institutions, including the Assembly and the North South Ministerial Council, has been to the detriment of all of us. Just think how differently we might have handled this very …

Despite the coyness at dinner in Phoenix Park, Brexit should be no barrier. We cannot escape the urgent need for a resumption of close British-Irish relations

Brian Walker on February 9, 2019, 10:56 am

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However they’re phased and whatever the context, close British Irish engagement on both Brexit and rescuing the GFA are essential. Who with any wit can doubt it? Brexit provides no excuse. Indeed, it’s one of two pressing reasons for close encounters, the other being the Stormont stand-off. Dinner in Farmleigh House may have been in Theresa May’s programme of displacement activity as she mulls over Labour’s offer to talk and runs down the clock, but at least it displayed dim …

“Given your own position of being a commentator and a bystander in Northern Ireland…”

Mick Fealty on February 8, 2019, 9:28 pm

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Good piece from Gareth Gordon on where Sinn Féin sits a year after Mary Lou brought her own shoes to the role that Gerry Adams defined. One of the affordances of the border [#Partitionist! – Ed], is the ability to say one thing in Northern Ireland and another in the south. But Gordon deftly removes that diaphanous screen to allow the political facts of the last year to speak for themselves. One, Sinn Féin rather than taking power in Northern Ireland …