Government – Page 3 – Slugger O'Toole

It looks like a deal but what sort of deal? And it’ll go down to the wire

Brian Walker on October 14, 2020, 10:11 pm

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The idea of extended deadlines right down to a supposed last minute will hardly surprise anybody in Northern Ireland. We’ve lived with them for a generation. Taking a tour round comment on the Brexit cliffhanger, the prospects for a deal are looking good. British predictions of going to the wire for a decision by the big beasts of Merkel and Macron look like being fulfilled. But that doesn’t mean an optimal deal for British interests. From Peston The odds of …

Power sharing is coming to England to spread the burden of responsibility for managing Covid. It will affect how the whole UK is governed

Brian Walker on October 10, 2020, 5:09 pm

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Painfully and suddenly all in a rush, under pressure of the Covid pandemic we’re witnessing the development of power sharing throughout England that has wider implications for the whole UK. The pandemic will stretch well into next year. The infection rate is about to equal or exceed last March’s. The strains imposed on government and by government are tightening. From having a rate of infection per 100,000 people of 11.4 in the week up to August 15, well below the …

On the doctrine of inevitability

Brendan Heading on October 8, 2020, 10:09 pm

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The News Letter had an interesting article a short while back, reporting remarks by Alex Easton in respect of a border poll and the Irish reunification debate. It is not clear in which context he made his comments, but the headline is that he speculates that nationalists will “inevitably” lose a border poll, and recites a few other well-known tropes. I am not a nationalist, but I feel that his comments reflect beliefs prevalent within unionism around how people like me …

Why can’t the Johnson government see that pure parliamentary sovereignty is incompatible with the survival of the UK?

Brian Walker on September 15, 2020, 12:02 pm

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Fintan O’Toole has written another of his entertaining essays trying to get to the bottom of why the UK and the English in particular are behaving like lemmings throwing themselves over a cliff over Brexit. In the Irish Times today he comes with up “England as Ireland.” The big problem with English nationalism is that it is naïve. Because it has been buried for centuries under two layers of disguise – the United Kingdom and the British Empire – it …

This is the very moment to speak out against the old Wolfe Tone trope, that Britain is the source of all Irish ills

Brian Walker on September 14, 2020, 11:17 am

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Demo in Place de la Républic, Paris As is only to be expected, Chris Donnelly in the Irish News plays the full anti imperialist card against the UK, without regard to variations of interpretation. He uses a French quotation approvingly as if the French were purely the idealists of the Rights of Man and that the revolution had no downside such as the ruinous attempt to conquer all Europe and the French Empire never existed. All major states were born …

Boris Johnson has thrown everything up in the air. The EU has to bring them down to earth

Brian Walker on September 12, 2020, 10:19 am

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The roller coaster continues. In its story today the Times slips in unattributably Johnson’s terms for a deal. The right of government to subsidise company development is the Trojan horse that has emerged as the biggest obstacle to a deal because it continues to apply to GB as well as NI, leaving a remnant of EU regulation at the heart of the UK that the sovereignty zealots find intolerable. On this apparently esoteric topic depends much of the future character …

Pause a moment. Could Johnson just pull it off?

Brian Walker on September 7, 2020, 4:42 pm

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The Protocol is a pawn on a bigger game; to remove any trace of involvement by the European Court of Justice in ruling on applications for state aid for ailing or new industries . While that would remain the rule for Northern Ireland firms, it leeches into GB firms who invest or have branches in the North. And that breaches a cardinal Leave principle, of no involvement by the Court in GB affairs. There is surely another a Leave issue …

United pressure on Sinn Féin may be needed to break the legacy payments deadlock. Their own will benefit

Brian Walker on August 29, 2020, 2:18 pm

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dFM Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin Has Martina Anderson’s outburst distracted attention away from the substantive issue of the legacy payments deadlock, or given a boost to resolving it, following the court case requiring Michelle O’Neill in effect to remove her veto or exercise her option to resign? The scheme covers violence related to the Northern Ireland Troubles between 1966 and 2010, including incidents in Great Britain and Europe.. . People will get between £2,000 and £10,000 a year for the …

John Hume the lone diplomat rather than party leader has won a special place in the history of these islands

Brian Walker on August 3, 2020, 12:22 pm

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John Hume photo Irish News It’s the memory of John the person that immediately springs to mind. I believe he came to see himself with the vision and strategy of a man of destiny. But he did so without any of the aura that would have set him apart and made him vulnerable to being taken down. The near sainthood that some have attributed to him must have made him smile. He had a great knack of friendliness even trust …

Why is the UK sleepwalking into final Brexit chaos and towards breakup?

Brian Walker on July 17, 2020, 2:40 pm

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As the notional deadline of October for final Brexit negotiations draws ever closer, the clouds if anything are growing darker. The UK’s statements on their withdrawal position and the NI protocol have clarified very little. Johnson and co seem like General de Gaulle in 1940, holding out for an impossible position of victory against the odds. But at least de Gaulle had allies. A City University webinar I linked up with yesterday confirmed growing pessimism over Northern Ireland prospects.( video …

Shared or united island? The Greens called it right.

Sarah Creighton on July 16, 2020, 2:16 pm

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The new banter coalition in the Republic has got off to a dramatic start. Ministerial sackings! A tax ruling from the ECJ! Infighting! It’s everything we could have hoped for. Among the chaos of this week came an interesting titbit from Green Party leader Eamon Ryan. According to Ryan our own Clare Bailey, the party leader in Northern Ireland, was behind the decision to rename the ‘united island’ unit in the Department of the Taoiseach to the ‘shared island’ unit. …

It would be a mistake for Unionists to seek terms for Irish unity now. There’s a bigger future to discuss

Brian Walker on July 10, 2020, 1:09 pm

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The time, therefore, has finally come for unionists, particularly those in Northern Ireland, to consider the terms on which they could tolerate, if not accept, a united Ireland… On the eve of Northern Ireland’s centenary next May, Unionism needs to form an assembly of its own to answer that question. So what should unionism demand in exchange for its tolerance of unification? First, let’s acknowledge that unionism holds a pretty decent hand should it care to play it: the knowledge …

From united Ireland to a united island to a shared island. What’s in a phrase?

Brian Walker on July 2, 2020, 11:34 am

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an Taioseach Micheál Martin On the grand coalition’s approach to the Irish future, the Trinity academic Etain Tannam has noticed important changes in the final version of the Programme for Government The final version in June differed quite significantly from the draft version in April. The 2020 Programme for Government provides a detailed long-term plan and creates a new unit in the Department of the Taoiseach to ‘work towards a consensus on a shared island.. The 2020 Programme for Government provides a detailed long-term plan and …

The New Deal was about more than a phrase, Boris. Michael Gove knows it and is bidding to be the government’s man of substance

Brian Walker on June 30, 2020, 5:34 pm

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Photo: The Guardian We knew in advance where Boris Johnson got “Rooseveltian” from. The inspiration came from Michael Gove, his friend and sometime rival who pre-announced Boris’s “bonanza” and gave him a sort of intellectual alibi in his Ditchley lecture last week. Johnson has the spectre of 3 million unemployed hanging over him and has had to think of something quick. Other than borrowing the phrase, he baulks at a New Deal. He warms up the old Tory manifesto, throws …

The curious case of the Department of Health

Sarah Creighton on June 30, 2020, 9:31 am

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Abortion has been legal in Northern Ireland for over a year now. Under the Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020, terminations up to 12 weeks are now lawful. Abortions after 12 weeks are heavily restricted. Terminations are available up to 24 weeks if there is a risk to the mental or physical health of the woman. There is no time limit where there is a fatal fetal abnormality. With the law firmly in place, it was expected that the commissioning of …

“No need for the talks to drag on to the autumn”.. but still the British are busking it

Brian Walker on June 19, 2020, 7:01 pm

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To return to the game of chicken with the EU.. Michael Gove. The argument we’re making to the EU as well is, if you insist on significant new infrastructure and a significant new presence, what you will do is actually make the protocol less acceptable to the majority community in Northern Ireland and therefore you run the risk of the protocol being voted down in a future election,” Michael Gove told the House of Commons Northern Ireland affairs committee. EU …

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 …

Is a Universal Basic Income from the magic money tree the antidote to recession?

Brian Walker on June 16, 2020, 1:51 pm

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1930s jobless queue. ” Buddy can you spare a dime”? With the mother of all recessions about to hit us we’re told, who can be blamed if we search frantically for magic bullets as furlough payments taper off? A universal basic income is one of them. Go for it says veteran commentator Simon Jenkins, usually one to save public money from big public spending schemes. Rishi Sunak must think radically. There is no point in saddling individuals, companies or future …

Action not another inquiry is needed to tackle the Troubles’ legacy as well as the legacy of slavery

Brian Walker on June 16, 2020, 12:20 pm

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Fintan O’Toole has turned his attention to support a new proposal for dealing with the legacy. While well intentioned, this one has a flavour of rummaging in the bottom drawer for an idea. The proposal (which I have signed, along with many others) is a product of widespread consultation with victims, with combatants from all sides and with people in politics and academia. The nub of it is conditional amnesty: a system in which those with personal knowledge of violent …

Next with Covid 19. Is it the economy, stupid?

Brian Walker on June 15, 2020, 10:06 am

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Newspaper subs are calling it “Manic Monday.” Are they right? How is it with you? Flash in the pan or setting a trend? This week marks the landmark of a return to shopping, the essential activity for economic revival while Covid is still active. It throws into relief the stark choice everybody hopes to finesse – health or wealth? The need for a strategy for revival is as vital as one for easing out of lockdown. In the UK neither …