EU – Page 4 – Slugger O'Toole

Despite the posturing brinkmanship, a deal with the EU is on the cards

Brian Walker on June 17, 2020, 4:49 pm

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I can’t think of a negotiation between governments anywhere, anytime in history where the suppliant used the threat to damage themselves as a negotiating ploy if they didn’t get their own way. Yet this has seemed to be Boris Johnson’s position as PM all along over Brexit. First there was the about turn over the backstop to accept a harsher frontstop ( at least for Northern Ireland); giving the EU all they wanted in the withdrawal agreement and then pretending …

Greater vision and laser-like focus on reality are needed if we are to emerge well out of the Covid and Brexit crises

Brian Walker on June 4, 2020, 11:06 am

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David Frost, UK, and Michel Barnier, EU, chief negotiators Imposing a unenforceable quarantine on visitors to the UK from other countries with lower death rates. Forcing MPs to vote in person to set an example for a return to work. Even in the midst of crisis – or especially? – irrationality plays a great part in politics as is does in human nature generally. Somewhere there was a germ of a point that got overtaken by time and circumstances. The …

Theresa Villiers U- turn! Arch Brexiteer opposes free trade deal with US as ” threat to the Union”

Brian Walker on May 25, 2020, 12:28 pm

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An intriguing little Brexit story. At a post- referendum conference in 2016 I watched flinching as Ireland’s most eminent public servant Peter Sutherland, former Attorney General, former EU commissioner, first head of the World Trade Organisation, chairman of BP etc.etc ( now sadly dead), tore into the UK’s decision to leave the EU as insane, disastrous etc., giving chapter and verse. As he finished he admitted with a grin he’d been ranting. Batting for Britain was former NI secretary Theresa …

Behind the alarmist noises, the UK and the EU have the basis of a deal. It will be criminal if they fail

Brian Walker on May 16, 2020, 10:41 am

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David Frost and Michel Barnier standing together ( just about) Lurking not far behind Covid is the self inflicted crisis over the next stage of Brexit. To many including me, the prospect of a border at the Irish Sea is as revolting as a physical border on the island of Ireland. It’s no consolation that there’s a disconnect between the political rhetoric and what’s actually happening on the ground. The government has privately conceded there will be post-Brexit checks on …

Victory for the de Souzas and for Irish citizens’ immigration rights: a battle that should never have needed to be fought

Brian Walker on May 15, 2020, 11:29 am

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Yet another example of ignorance of Northern Ireland affairs in different parts of the UK government. Derry born Emma de Souza has won her three year battle to allow her American husband Jake to live with her, an Irish citizen in Northern Ireland, without having to renounce her birthright as a British citizen which she doesn’t want to exercise. She wants to bring him in under EU therefore Irish not UK immigration laws. Her victory is a triumph of principle …

Boris Johnson’s perversity on the Brexit cliff edge reminds me of the Free State’s rejection of all things British

Brian Walker on April 30, 2020, 9:05 pm

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Warrenpoint Harbour The UK’s stubbornly negative approach to future relations within the EU reminds me of the newborn Free State’s attitude to Britain after the trauma of independence. They can’t wait to be rid of even the symbols as well as the substance of the former power even to the extent of trying to deny the facts of mutual interdependence particularly over the economy. Granted there are vital differences. No blood has been spilled over Brexit and… I was going …

The Biopolitics of Covid-19

Seán Brennan on April 2, 2020, 11:23 am

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It’s like that Wizard of Oz moment, when the curtain gets pulled back, and we are confronted with the reality, that systems of social administration and political governance appear to be in want: and political leadership has failed in its primary role, to protect the health of the people. Such is the Potemkin-like nature of many globalised societies now, it’s taken a pandemic to see through this façade, of mediocre management and amateur political leadership driving the global polity. And …

What’s in the Coronavirus Bill?

Sarah Creighton on March 23, 2020, 9:13 am

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This week the government intends to push its Coronavirus Bill through Parliament. In its “summary of impacts” document, the government states that the bill is “temporary, emergency legislation” which intends to “provide powers needed to respond to the current coronavirus epidemic.” MPs will be expected to grapple with the 300-page bill over the course of a few days. It will, for as long as it is in operation, fundamentally change our way of life. The legislation represents the biggest diminution …

How will they square the circle of unfettered access to Northern Ireland ports? Check it out on – Thursday now

Brian Walker on February 23, 2020, 8:14 pm

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David Frost ( no, not that one, now deceased) According to the Sunday Times we will know the approach the UK will adopt for the next stage of EU withdrawal in a couple of days, now that the country has left the organisation and we are in the transition phase of less than a year. The UK government are taking up a position of maximum distance from the EU procedures and laws quite different from the erratic harder no softer …

Asking the right questions for a better-informed public

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on February 4, 2020, 2:03 pm

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Asking the right questions for a better-informed public by Allan LEONARD 28 January 2020 Representing FactCheckNI and as part of a four-person panel, I was invited to give evidence to the UK House of Lords Select Committee on Democracy and Digital Technologies. Fellow witnesses were Ed Humpherson (Director General for Regulation, Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)), Will Moy (Chief Executive, Full Fact), and Jenni Sargent (Managing Director, First Draft). This was an extension of the committee’s previous call for written …

A way can be found between the EU rock and the GB hard place. But will Boris Johnson let us take it?

Brian Walker on February 4, 2020, 9:09 am

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Katy Hayward We are literally at sea over what Northern Ireland’s special status with the EU will mean in practice. Our Brexit guru – or should I now say, our Guru on Trading Relations with GB and the EU Katy Hayward writing in the Belfast Telegraph explains neatly why Northern Ireland is between a rock and a hard place In the past Katy was keen to repeat assurances that NI’s different economic relationship with the EU from GB had …

Explainer: Injured Victims’ Payments

Luke Moffett on February 3, 2020, 12:25 pm

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The campaign for a pension for seriously injured victims has been a long road since it started back in 2012, following a report by Marie Breen-Smyth on the impact of the Troubles on those injured. Led by members of the Wave injured group and supported by the Commission for Victims and Survivors, the pension campaign was about remedying the way injured victims had been inadequately compensated in the past, discriminated or ill-treated. For many years the issue was caught in …

Assorted thoughts on the realities of border polling and reunification

Brendan Heading on February 1, 2020, 2:44 pm

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There is no question that the brexit process is having a seismic effect on the ties that bind the UK’s four constituent parts. The union has never been weaker, not just because the UK now has a government that clearly places little value on it, but also because the populations of Scotland and Northern Ireland are questioning its value in ever greater numbers. I’ve heard arguments – from supporters and representatives of one political party in particular – that these …

In the brave new world outside the EU, the DUP have no survival strategy for the Union

Brian Walker on February 1, 2020, 7:00 am

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The quivering projection of Big Ben onto the facade of Downing St accompanied by its tinny recorded chimes while the Brexit deliverer skulked inside, said it all. Boris Johnson did not want to be visibly identified with the big moment in case it all goes pear shaped. In former times retreats on such a scale were the result of war. That’s about best thing that can be said about Brexit; the worst is that it’s heading for a bigger reverse, …

What is your goodbye song for Europe?

Brian O'Neill on January 31, 2020, 4:26 pm

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I am sure tonight as Big Ben strikes 11pm you will all be waving your Union Jacks and joining in a rousing chorus of Rule Britannia. But what song symbolises the UK’s leaving of the EU? For me it has to be this classic from the Queen of Country herself – Miss Dolly Parton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDqqm_gTPjc If I should stay I would only be in your way So I’ll go but I know I’ll think of you each step of the …

#BrexitDay-Nothing but damage

Sarah Creighton on January 31, 2020, 8:27 am

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In Jan Carson’s The Fire Starters, there is a quote: “There is never enough silence to contain all our talking…….we continue to believe that across the sea, Europe (and also the world) is holding its breath for the next chapter in our sad story. The world is not waiting.” More than anywhere else in the UK, Brexit shifted the ground beneath Northern Ireland. It threw us down on different sides, sides that were also the battle lines that came before. …

Reform and enlargement: Europe’s next struggle…

Jay Burbank on January 30, 2020, 1:47 pm

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The first stage of the Brexit process, the ‘withdrawal’ is nearing its completion with a vote in the EU parliament on the withdrawal package now done. Barnier and the Commission throughout the process have presented a unified message with little breakdown in communication between them and the EU capitals. It may look to EU federalists like a stepping stone on the process of sovereign status for the Brussels institutions but upon closer inspection this notion is easily dispelled. The Brexit …

Free event: Queen’s Policy Engagement Post-Brexit Clinic on 4 February 2020…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on January 28, 2020, 5:19 pm

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Join us for what will be the first post-Brexit Clinic here at Queen’s Policy Engagement. The UK’s request to extend the Brexit deadline to 31 January 2020 was agreed back in 2019 and Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal recently became law after it received royal assent from the Queen, having gone through all the required stages in Parliament. As things stand, the 1st February 2020 will mark the first day of the transition period for the UK and the beginning of a very …

Michel Barnier speaking about #Brexit and the EU at QUB this evening (video + speech)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on January 27, 2020, 8:32 pm

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Making his third visit to Northern Ireland in the role of EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier addressed a packed audience in Queen’s University Belfast’s Riddel Hall this evening. Watch back the video of his lecture and read extracts from his speech.

Paraphrasing what I heard: the UK can no longer dip its hand into the EU sweetie jar as those treats are only for the 27 members. Anyone hoping for a softer edge to Brexit may think again.

Making in progress in Northern Ireland

Paul Gosling on January 14, 2020, 10:11 am

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The resumption of the Assembly and Executive of Stormont is the basis for a reform of government in Northern Ireland and a change in the way our society operates. The big question is how this can be achieved. Holywell Trust conducted interviews with opinion leaders in Northern Ireland and the Republic asking how our society should change. Those 35 ‘Forward Together’ interviews were covered extensively last year by Slugger and broadcast as podcasts. They have this week been published on …