Some Slugger readers might remember, back in 2016, that I decided to take the plunge and lease an electric car. Recently, more attention has been paid to this topic; BBC NI recently ran a few segments about it, and I noted at the end of one of the leader’s debates prior to the election that the leaders were all asked if they had plans to change to an electric car. Then, this morning, I noticed that the Department for Infrastructure …
I have been a supporter of the Good Friday Agreement since its inception. I believe many of the mechanisms contained therein are sensible and necessary to manage the divided society we live in, and I accepted the principle of consent as a reasonable compromise in pursuit of a peaceful and democratic society. Nonetheless, while I have been a fierce advocate of the Agreement, I certainly won’t dismiss every criticism levelled at it. Mandatory coalition, for example, has led to a …
The Brexit process has put the UK’s democratic system under great strain, pitting competing democratic visions against each other and exposing weaknesses in each. Join Queen’s Policy Engagement for our first event of 2020 with Dr Alan Renwick from the UCL Constitution Unit where he will examine those weaknesses and consider possible ways of addressing them. Could the 2016 referendum have been designed differently to create a less polarised process? How could the grievances with current politics that the referendum …
Andrew Parsons i/Images Now they tell us. Labour moderates had been watching the growth of the Conservative vote in north east of England council elections for years. But so had the Conservatives’ evil genius Dominic Cummings and he knew how to act on it. Forget obsessions with social media, go knock on doors. As Tip O’Neill the old Speaker of the US House of Representatives memorably once said, All politics is local.” And we can add, it transcends ideology alone. …
Last night’s exit polls came as a shock, the scale of both the Conservative and SNP seat predictions almost beyond belief. The cold hard reality of the morning after has brought little comfort. Remainers must be commended for fighting to the end, but the good fight is now lost. The roller-coaster has crested the summit, and Boris Johnson’s Brexit is now inevitable. If this truly was the Brexit Election, then the electorate have given their verdict. Or should that be …
In 1918 the United Kingdom as it had existed was blown apart by a trifecta of landslides; a Tory landslide in Great Britain driven by a three-way split in the centre-left vote; a Sinn Féin landslide in most of Ireland; and an Ulster Unionist landslide in what would soon become Northern Ireland. This election is more most consequential than any in the 101 years since, and it too has been marked by competing landslides: a Tory landslide in England and …
Free Event: Tuesday 17 December at 12.30pm Bell Lecture Theatre, Main Campus, Queen’s University Belfast Why not come along for some post-election dissection with a side of Brexit analysis thrown in! Boris Johnson’s call for a general election was finally heard, and as we all know by now, UK voters are off to the polls on the 12th December for what commentators are calling the most important election in a generation! Join us at Queen’s University on the 17th December …
Let’s begin at (your) home. After all the mystery and muttering about tactics after the election, do you know which main party the DUP would support in government? I don’t. But Nigel Dodds sounds as if he’s nuzzling up to the Tories again with or without an overall majority There is no doubt that if we reach a tariff-free trade deal with the European Union, that will eliminate the need for most if not all customs checks..I sincerely hope …
The NHS howler of this campaign has hit Boris Johnson so hard he wanted to hide it in his pocket in the middle of an ITV News interview .. And more on another Johnson brazen denial -.the building row over the frontstop. Two Europe editors take his case apart, culled from Twitter. Peter Foster Europe editor of the Daily Telegraph HOW can Whitehall design this new GB-NI border or customs ‘filter’ UNTIL it knows what the shape of the UK-EU …
It’s more than depressing when the prime minister keeps brazening out denials about checks between GB and NI. He actually contradicts himself between “ no checks” and “the only checks” within a couple of sentences below. When asked on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday whether there would be checks, in light of the leaked Treasury document, Johnson replied: “No, absolutely not… The deal we’ve done with the EU is a brilliant deal and it allows us to do all …
It’s not actually news that there will “be a border down the Irish Sea” if Boris Johnson’s withdrawal agreement is passed. But if the document Jeremy Corbyn has been waving this morning is an authentic Treasury paper, it shows that Johnson is lying or at best or in denial. He will surely be pressed to explain himself in tonight’s BBC debate with Jeremy Corbyn. Taken at face value it means Johnson will denounce his own withdrawal agreement as soon as …
Almost single handedly the BBC interviewer Andrew Neil is exposing the thinness of the main party leaders arguments – even those of the normally poised and practiced Nicola Sturgeon. who was rattled as never before. A minority Labour government would not need to be the SNP’s suitor – the SNP have nowhere else to go. A second referendum overturning the result of the first would deprive her of her best argument for Indy Ref 2. Would the EU welcome …
Anand Menon the director the UK in a Changing Europe and as near to objectivity as it gets, has been issuing correctives to the Brexit positions of both the UK government and the EU Commission. In separate articles his analyses provide sage advice for both sides after the election. Does it mean a smoother passage for all goods in both directions across the Irish Sea? In the Guardian yesterday, with Catharine Barnard Get Brexit done….” The simple answer is that …
Peering into a crystal ball however cloudy is as irresistible for the curious voter as the compulsive gambler. Favourable predictions for the Conservatives range from an overall majority of over 100 to fewer MPs than May won in 2017 but still the largest party. Serious hopes of a Labour majority are round about nil. They are likely to need the support on some basis of minority parties, the SNP, the Lib Dems and who knows? – even the DUP. Johnson’s …
Hobsbawm’s account of history at the Cold War’s end makes for stark reading now in 2019 – our world being the one that this old one birthed. American hegemony is not secured, economics is no less clear and international relations have melted from their bi-polar “Communist/Capitalist” freeze. The European Community, originally created in the 1950s because of the mutual fear of communist overrun in the minds of US technocrats and Western European elites, made its effective declaration of independence from …
As anger over Boris Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement grows, one group of unionists has put out an “anti-betrayal act” poster. It sums up the current state of unionism. The poster portrays a baying mob with pitchforks. Apparently all unionist men dress like junior members of The Bar Library and work in an office. The language used is macho and patriarchal. There are no women on the poster, presumably because they’re all at home rolling their eyes. The poster comes at a …
A panel considered how to engage in a friendly and unthreatening conversation about the future constitutional arrangements for Northern Ireland. This was held as part of a concluding reflection on the Holywell Trust’s series of 35 Forward Together podcast interviews. The panel comprised author Julieann Campbell, the commentator Denis Bradley (who was co-chair of the Consultative Group on the Past and former deputy chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board) and Maureen Hetherington of the Junction, plus myself as the …
Next week, Queen’s University will host a symposium on ‘Unions and Unionism: Brexit and these Islands’. It’s an apt opportunity for reflection given the increasingly tumultuous Brexit negotiations and the DUP’s place in this precarious process. The symposium begins on Thursday 24 October, 4.45-6.30 pm with a keynote address on ‘Exodus, Reckoning, Sacrifice: Three Meanings of Brexit’ by Kalypso Nicolaidis, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Centre for International Studies at the University of Oxford. Friday 25 October …
A discussion on how to deal with the past was held as part of a concluding reflection on the Holywell Trust’s series of Forward Together podcasts. The panel was author Julieann Campbell, the commentator Denis Bradley (who was co-chair of the Consultative Group on the Past and former deputy chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board) and Maureen Hetherington of the Junction, plus myself as the person who conducted the interviews for the 35 podcasts. This podcast also includes a …
Following the meeting between Boris Johnson and Leo Varadkar in England this week, hopes have risen for a deal between the EU and the UK over the vexed issue of post-Brexit customs arrangements for Northern Ireland. The previous proposals made by the British government to replace the Irish backstop were that Northern Ireland would align with single market regulations on agri-food, but that Northern Ireland would leave the EU’s customs union, meaning that there would be checks on goods both …
