EU – Page 28 – Slugger O'Toole

EXCLUSIVE POLL: Unionist supporters content with East West post #Brexit border controls…

Soapbox on November 26, 2017, 6:31 pm

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The dilemma facing Brexit negotiators on the ‘Irish border’ question is how to retain an invisible, frictionless, ‘soft’ North-South border in Ireland and somehow avoid the seemingly inevitable reality of the emergence of a ‘hard’ border if the UK leaves the single market and the customs union. Squaring this circle is a little tricky. It’s hard to have a border and not have a border all at the same time. Borders are a bit like boiled eggs, either hard or …

Ireland and the border has emerged as the current acid test. In their own interests, Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin should give Theresa May space to pass it

Brian Walker on November 25, 2017, 5:57 pm

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The current British position is admirably described by James Forsyth in the Brexit leaning, Conservative supporting Spectator. I can do no better than to quote it at length. It covers a viewpoint that cannot be dismissed by ardent Remainers like me. Whatever the mood music, it will be taken seriously in the chancelleries of Europe. For they see that the British are gradually shifting. The next few weeks are the time for quiet diplomacy with the megaphone put away and the tweeting held in check.

Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London

Continuity between Adams’ failed war and failing peace is to ‘establish the conflict as eternal and perpetual’

Mick Fealty on November 24, 2017, 10:45 am

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A powerful piece from Newton Emerson, in yesterday’s Irish Times… The first person the IRA murdered after Gerry Adams was elected Sinn Féin president was Charles Armstrong, the Ulster Unionist chair of Armagh City and District Council. Adams became president on Sunday, November 13th, 1983. The following evening, a bomb exploded under Armstrong’s car as he left a council meeting. An SDLP colleague, Pat Brannigan, risked his life by pulling Armstrong from the burning wreckage. Armstrong left a wife and eight children, who heard the explosion from …

Domestic political turmoil renders the Brexit negotiations even more unpredictable. This time it’s not London’s fault

Brian Walker on November 24, 2017, 9:34 am

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Compared with some other key leaders, Theresa May’s position is looking remarkably stable for a change as she flies into Brussels today for what’s being billed in London as crucial meetings with EU leaders including Council president Donald Tusk. The Westminster lobby is reporting that she’ll be taking soundings over whether a British offer of a bigger divorce bill – £40 billion is being mentioned off the record – would be enough to persuade EU leaders to allow Brexit talks …

Another leak against the Brits, but Theresa’s not for budging

Brian Walker on November 23, 2017, 2:21 pm

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Another leak to RTE, another bout of Irish pressure, accompanied by Irish Times columnist Stephen Collins joining a chorus of “ contempt” for British tactics and urging his government to stand firm. The (British position that the) Border issue should be dealt with in phase two of the Brexit negotiations dealing with future trade rather than in phase one as the EU is insisting. This is an obvious attempt to use the Border as a bargaining tool in the negotiations …

The postwar ID requirement between Northern Ireland and Great Britain

Brendan Heading on November 23, 2017, 8:36 am

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Reading through some old Wikipedia articles pointed me to an interesting exchange in the House of Commons, back in 1948. Ulster Unionist MPs Conolly Gage and Major Samuel Gillmor Haughton rose during an adjournment debate to complain about the requirement for a permit or passport to be presented for travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Mr Gage opens by highlighting the inconvenience of this arrangement : As everyone knows, Ulster is as much a part of …

Three things we know about Brexit..

Mick Fealty on November 21, 2017, 11:23 pm

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Nicholas Whyte reports on three things we now know about Brexit: According to Barnier the British are talking about a Canada type model, no sector by sector deals and no passporting for the financial sector. The Irish border issue is serious and as yet has no solution (which is why the Taoiseach has been upping the stakes) The emergence of news of a £40 Billion figure emerging from the British side Nicholas suggests this means there’s going to be a …

Brexit and the border is widening the gap between London and Dublin and depressing further the chances of a return to Stormont

Brian Walker on November 21, 2017, 11:31 am

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It has started to happen. Will it continue? Can it be reversed? The politics of Brexit is openly dividing the UK and Irish governments and further polarising the DUP and Sinn Fein, making a return to the Executive less likely than ever. Predictably Brexit is increasingly becoming domesticated as the new big theme in a revived unionist v nationalist struggle. What’s just happened? The sequence was best described in a cool- headed column in the Indo by Dan O’Brien, chief …

“Even if we could clean up our own murky waters, and not be seen as a chasm of dysfunction and smuggling”

Mick Fealty on November 21, 2017, 7:00 am

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So back in the real world, there’s Brexit. Newton Emerson’s piece from last week’s Irish Times is well worth reading into the Slugger record (whilst so much that gets written about Brexit these days is not): In Northern Ireland, some business and political figures have expressed the hope of becoming a post-Brexit bridge between the UK and the EU. An outline of this structure has been glimpsed in the proposal, currently being examined by EU officials, for Northern Ireland to become an …

A crunch on the border is not in Ireland’s interests

Brian Walker on November 18, 2017, 12:32 pm

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“What we want to take off the table, before we even talk about trade, is any idea that there would be a hard Border, a physical Border, or a Border resembling the past . . . Then we’d be happy to move on to phase two.” “The UK insists that the issue cannot be tackled until the EU agrees to move to discussion of phase-two issues. Speaking at Iveagh House on Friday, Boris Johnson echoed Mrs May’s approach. “In order to resolve …

What rules the UK will take will determine degree of Single Market access. Is it that simple?

Mick Fealty on November 18, 2017, 7:42 am

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I’m struggling to find the flaw in Ian’s reasoning here (perhaps our pro Brexit regulars can help me?): …even if somehow Angela Merkel were scared that the German economy could be crippled by, er, not being able to export freely to a smaller country like the UK, she cannot intervene to offer the UK a special deal. No one can. Let us repeat: the EU is the Single Market and the Single Market is the EU. Let us also repeat: …

Brexit is in a mess, but not irretrievably

Brian Walker on November 15, 2017, 2:48 pm

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Want to know where we really are on Brexit? In three words, in a mess. Can we get out of it? Possibly at the eleventh hour, 10 pm on Friday 19 March 2019, just like the Good Friday Agreement in fact. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. As so often – like the Stormont standoff – the politics look more difficult than the rational solutions. The Irish and British prime ministers profess themselves in the dark about each others’ …

Are the DUP really going to push for a fundamentalist agricultural policy? (I doubt it.)

Mick Fealty on November 15, 2017, 11:54 am

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Brian Feeney raises a real issue facing farmers with regard to Brexit… …last week US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross was quite clear that if the UK wants a trade deal with the US after Brexit they will have to jettison EU food standards. Chlorine-washed chicken is the least of it. Some chickens are dosed with antihistamines to tenderise their meat. Others have been treated with ketamine, a hallucinogenic drug, yet others with steroids. And, as Brian hints, it’s not the only …

Man who advocates driving off cliff advises friends not to be in the car…

Brian O'Neill on November 15, 2017, 7:27 am

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The Guardian reports that arch-Eurosceptic MP John Redwood has been advising clients in his day job to pull their money out of the UK: In the piece for the Financial Times, the Conservative MP – who has a £180,000 second job as chief global strategist for Charles Stanley – said the European Central Bank was promoting faster growth when the UK was seeing a squeeze on credit. “Mario Draghi, ECB president, is now doing whatever it takes, not just to rescue …

UK to leave the EU on 29th March 2019 at 11pm

David McCann on November 9, 2017, 11:41 pm

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The UK Government has confirmed that it will enshrine the date and time of leaving the EU as Friday 29th March 2019 at 11pm (midnight Central European Time). The BBC reports; Mrs May, in an article in the Telegraph, said the decision to put the date of Brexit “on the front page” of the EU Withdrawal Bill showed the government was determined to see the process through. “Let no-one doubt our determination or question our resolve, Brexit is happening,” she said. …

Real work to restore the Executive has yet to begin. For the public to make an impact, proposals and pressure from the governments are essential

Brian Walker on November 8, 2017, 11:51 am

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As a comparative outsider I’m struck by how most commentators are obsessed with speculating about political positioning and identity narratives. This has produced numbing negativism and despair rather than the energy needed to approach the daunting but practical problem of trying to restore the Executive. Being case hardened and calloused, they endlessly refine their own explanations for obvious failure. They accept the parameters set by the DUP and SF too readily. To be fair, this is often the default caused by a …

To solve the Catalan crisis, pay homage to Britain

Brian Walker on October 29, 2017, 11:25 am

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The Catalonian campaign for independence is a phenomenon of our times, like the Scottish. They both claim they are ancient entities enjoying sufficient cohesion to go it alone and find their own balance between globalisation (the great big world now closer to all of us than ever) and self sufficiency ( provided it comes under the safety blanket of the EU). They seem to think they deserve as of right, easy acquiescence and the blessing of a good deal from …

Belfast man sentenced in Germany for 1996 Provisional IRA attack on army barracks

Pete Baker on October 25, 2017, 2:22 pm

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A timely lesson from the German authorities on dealing with Northern Ireland legacy issues… Having successfully extradited 48-year-old James Anthony Oliver Corry from the Republic of Ireland in December last year, the Belfast man has now been convicted and sentenced for his role in the Provisional IRA mortar attack on a British army barracks near Osnabrück, Germany, in June 1996. From the Irish Times report A Northern Ireland man has been convicted in Germany of attempted murder for participating in an IRA attack on a British army barracks in the …

Brexistentialist Crisis? – Get your free tickets for our live event on Mon 6th November…

Brian O'Neill on October 24, 2017, 2:51 pm

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Brexit: Northern Ireland in a changing world With the UK withdrawal from the EU drawing closer, there has never been a bigger appetite for information on how negotiations are progressing and what the implications are for every aspect of life here in Northern Ireland and across the rest of the UK. It’s more than six months since Article 50 was triggered, but the government is still being accused of not having a plan, of internal division and of not being …

Catalonia – “Propaganda thrives in a crisis.”

Pete Baker on October 21, 2017, 4:56 pm

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Guardian columnist Natalie Nougayrède is hoping for a Pedro Almodóvar inspired ending to the wild, dark comedy that characterises the current impasse between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. From the Guardian article However, the 1 October referendum was hardly a model of sound, democratic expression. Only a minority of Catalans took part (turnout was 43%), and its organisation ran counter to Catalonia’s own legislation. The two laws that led to it were voted through without the two-thirds majority the Catalan charter (the Estatut) requires for …