Europe – Slugger O'Toole

“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 …

Life Punishes the Late—Adapt or Die

Gerry Lynch on February 20, 2025, 2:14 pm

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A portrait of Donald Trump, featuring his signature blonde hair and serious expression. He is wearing a blue suit, white dress shirt, and blue tie, with a small American flag pin on his lapel. An American flag is partially visible in the background, along with ornate wooden paneling

This will be the first of many shattering weeks in 2025. Even the cleverest members of the establishment that is being routed have started to acknowledge publicly that the old order is dead. This isn’t a matter of a change in the personnel in charge, or even of long-standing diplomatic alliances, but of suddenly finding that the assumptions that most of us shared about how the world functions and how it should function are no longer correct. To think through …

GFA and Windsor Framework ‘tributes to complexity’: McDonagh at JHISS

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on July 26, 2023, 4:53 pm

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At the opening address of this year’s John Hewitt International Summer School in Armagh, Bobby McDonagh, former Irish Ambassador to the UK and Permanent Representative to the EU, explored themes of the nature of identity, the beauty of complexity, the power of language, and reasons for optimism in the future of society on this island. McDonagh began with reference to this year’s chosen poem by John Hewitt, “An Irishman in Coventry”, written in 1958. The poem deplored “The glittering fables/Which …

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 …

Between a Rock and a Hard Place…

Frank Schnittger on June 10, 2022, 11:43 am

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Flags of the member states of the European Union in front of the EU-commission building "Berlaymont" in Brussels, Belgium

Boris Johnson is reported to be delaying the publication of the Bill to over-ride parts of the protocol until such time as the DUP agree to the election of a Speaker in the Assembly. The DUP is refusing to proceed until they see the contents of the Bill and ensure that it directly over-rides the Protocol and doesn’t merely give the power to Ministers to do so at some stage of their choosing. No doubt a compromise will be worked …

John Kyle has reminded us all that there is zero appetite for a DUP Lite…

Ian Clarke on November 30, 2021, 10:14 am

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In my post last week I stated my view that “of course there’s not a great depth of understanding of the protocol among those most vocally opposing it (just as there’s no great depth of understanding of it among those most vocally endorsing it).” It was encouraging that there was no real effort in the comments section to refute that view. That’s why I was heartened by Dr John Kyle’s contribution to The View on Thursday last. Discussion on the …

The road to Brexit – part two…

Robert Campbell on March 24, 2021, 7:26 am

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You can read part one here… The Conservative Party and Brexit In her Bruges speech on 20 September 1988 Margaret Thatcher said[1]: We have not embarked on the business of throwing back the frontiers of state at home only to see a European superstate getting ready to exercise a new dominance from Brussels. The speech exposed the divisions in the Conservative party between Europhiles and Eurosceptics. The date is conventionally taken as the start of the Brexit process[2]. In a …

When are the DUP going to ditch the Tories?

Sarah Creighton on January 14, 2021, 9:00 am

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“What did we do to members on those benches over there, to be screwed over by this protocol,” Ian Paisley asked in Parliament yesterday, “ask your hearts, what did we do?” Oh Ian. It’s a cliché at this point to quote Edward Carson’s “What a fool I was…” speech. It’s boring. We all know it by now. I prefer the bit after that famous line: “And of all the men in my experience that I think are the most loathsome it …

Is Now The Right Time for Brexit?

Kevin McAteer on July 7, 2020, 7:00 am

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If Covid 19 has taught us one thing, we are not ready for a crisis to be sprung upon us. Stormont has been constantly criticised for its slow response, crucially regarding the PPE fiasco. The Brexit crisis however has been four years in the making meaning we should be preparing right? Recently some Northern Ireland MPs have advocated for a Brexit extension. However is Brexit at this time really a bad idea? As a pro European supporter I can be …

Northern Ireland’s MPs and Brexit: Their past and future influence…

Katy Hayward on April 10, 2020, 7:00 am

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The UK in a Changing Europe recently published a report on Parliament and Brexit. The report examines how much has changed as a result of Brexit and, of course, the 2019 election which is unlikely to have happened in other circumstances. It also looks ahead to upcoming challenges for Parliament as the transition period hurtles along. This extract from the report considers the parties from Northern Ireland and their place in Westminster. It is easy to forget in hindsight, but …

#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 …

This isn’t a coup. We should still be concerned and angry.

Sarah Creighton on August 29, 2019, 12:02 pm

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Boris Johnson set off a political earthquake when he asked the Queen to prorogue parliament on the 28th August. There have been huge protests in London. Opposition MPs are demanding meetings with the Queen. The Speaker has issued a statement calling Johnson’s decision a “a constitutional outrage.” Many people will be cheering Boris Johnson on. Others will be frightened and scared at what lies ahead. It’s the reason why many are referring to the current situation as a coup. When …

Has a human rights culture gone too far? The subject of this year’s BBC Reith Lectures

Brian Walker on June 4, 2019, 9:32 pm

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Lord Sumption On what authority do we create “a rights based society”? Is everything we call rights, actually rights or just preferences? Who arbitrates between competing rights? In what way are rights superior to ordinary law? These are basic questions which lie behind the claim often made in Northern Ireland that all rights are beyond legitimate dispute. They also lie at the heart of this year’s series of BBC Reith Lectures being given by Jonathan Sumption, a recently retired Supreme …

Brexit Woes and a Broken Parliament: The Perilous Path Ahead for British Democracy

Soapbox on April 27, 2019, 9:08 am

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Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement has been rejected multiple times in Parliament. The EU says it can’t be re-negotiated, but that’s beside the point. Despite two series of indicative votes, MPs refused to back any alternative version of Brexit. There also wasn’t enough support for a no-deal Brexit, nor for revoking Article 50 to cancel Brexit altogether. In other words, Parliament rejected all the options available. There were none left. Even those who oppose the withdrawal agreement cannot fairly blame it …

The catastrophic fire of Notre Dame gives us a poignant message for Easter, that our heritage is as much about renewal and rebirth as death and destruction

Brian Walker on April 16, 2019, 1:50 pm

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Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times brings an American perspective to the catastrophic fire at Notre Dame. Like him I immediately thought of the place accorded to the great cathedral by Kenneth Clark in his monumental BBC series Civilisation I saw when broadcast in the 1970s, and then kept in an old fashioned box set of VHSs for viewing by children as an essential part of their education. Like Kimmelman, I think of other fires and destruction of the …

“Such pressure as is on Ireland (and it will be significant) will come from the reality of the situation…”

Pete Baker on February 2, 2019, 3:03 pm

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Worth quoting at length from Pat Leahy in the Irish Times on the Irish Government’s role in the ongoing Brexit negotiations. It’s a welcome, un-hysterical look at a key player in what will unfold. [And all too rare here! – Ed] Indeed. From the Irish Times By and large, Leo Varadkar, Simon Coveney and the Government apparatus as a whole have handled the Brexit crisis well – just as the Opposition, in the main, has been pretty responsible. Contrast our …

Looking through the lens of history helps us ease the torments of Brexit

Brian Walker on December 22, 2018, 11:50 am

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As a Christmas treat, let’s stand back from the tangles of Brexit and the backstop and take a broader look at how they’re complicating our fond old obsession with our choice of identities British, Irish and European. One of the leaders of the current debate is Fintan O’Toole a torrentially eloquent writer who knows Britain as well as his own backyard. You’d be hard put to find an English equivalent writing about Ireland. What we see more of are endless voyages of …

Why Brexit is going wrong and how it could be fixed (part 2)

Paul Evans on November 28, 2018, 10:01 am

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This is the second of two posts here looking at Brexit through a democratic, rather than a political lens. In the previous post, I argued that the ‘cliff edge’ exit that is inevitable when leaving the EU is not sustainable for the EU, and that the UK would be doing everyone a favour by challenging it. The word “crisis” is over-used in British politics, but we are undoubtedly in one now. We have a Prime Minister who is trying to …