Government – Page 3 – Slugger O'Toole

No mention of the fantasy Irish Sea link in Johnson’s plan to link up the UK. Is he quietly ditching it already?

Brian Walker on March 10, 2021, 9:43 am

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The BBC is reporting that a feasibility study is being made into Boris Johnson’s crackpot scheme of a bridge or tunnel over the Irish Sea (with ample space for customs clearing stations no doubt). But intriguingly the prime minister makes no mention of it in an article he’s written for the Daily Telegraph announcing a new UK wide transport strategy “ to strengthen the very sinews of the UK.” Very odd that he makes no mention of his current pet …

It is intolerable that Stormont is handing back hundreds of millions of pounds to London when urgent cancer cases are being denied treatment

Brian Walker on January 25, 2021, 6:49 pm

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The news that 275 people in Northern Ireland with “red-flag” cancer have had their surgery cancelled in the past week has been followed by the tragic irony that the Health Service has been forced to hand back £90 million unspent this year to the Treasury in Whitehall . The dismal information reminds me of Irish farm produce being exported from Ireland during the Famine of the 1840s while more than a million starved. The theory behind it is even more …

A border poll can be held at any time – redux

Brendan Heading on January 24, 2021, 5:03 pm

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With border polls remaining a major topic of conversation, particularly following today’s Sunday Times/Lucid Talk reporting of a poll which found that a majority of voters in Northern Ireland wish a border poll to be held within the next five years, I still find that there remain widespread misconceptions around the Secretary of State’s powers to call a border poll. In particular, people still seem to think that the Secretary of State has no discretionary power to call a border …

Is voluntary coalition reaching the end of its useful time?

Ian Clarke on December 21, 2020, 2:20 pm

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In Friday’s News Letter, Claire Bailey scathingly casts doubt over the durability of our current system of government by saying “The five-party executive model hasn’t been conducive to sound decision making. The competing priorities of each of the parties means that crisis management is beyond their capabilities”. Unfortunately, she didn’t take her opening paragraph to its logical conclusion in the rest of her article. But it’s a start. This came not long after a Sam McBride article in the same …

What next after the interim report on Irish referendums?

Brian Walker on December 7, 2020, 6:31 pm

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A surprising initiative It’s a remarkable fact about the working group on Unification Referendums that it took an initiative led by London academics to start the process of setting rules for a possible outcome that has been the Irish obsession of centuries. The initiative was in part a reproach as to how politics particularly but not only in Northern Ireland is serving the public, partly an acknowledgement of the complexity of the issues where intensity of feeling can prevent people …

Surely it’s long past time that we binned this unspoken “Honorary MLA” status?

Ian Clarke on November 12, 2020, 9:41 am

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Last week, following the resignation of West Tyrone MLA Catherine Kelly following the office cash controversy, Sinn Fein chose to replace her with party colleague Nicola Brogan. I’m not singling out this MLA or her party as five parties have done similar since the last Assembly election. But the word “appointed” is such an inappropriate one in any democratic process and it needs to be addressed. An MLA goes for whatever reason, but the electorate has no say in who …

New Decade, Same Nonsense

Sarah Creighton on November 12, 2020, 8:27 am

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With the four-week circuit breaker due to expire on Friday, people across Northern Ireland are looking for certainty. Businesses need to know if they can re-open at the weekend. Workers want to know if they’ll get an income over the next few weeks. All the while, six of Northern Ireland’s hospitals are at full capacity. As of this morning, the Executive still hasn’t agreed a way forward. Robin Swann proposed a two-week extension of the circuit breaker but this was …

What is a shared island?

Sarah Creighton on October 23, 2020, 1:53 pm

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I am but a mere local political commentator who occasionally gets asked to do TV and radio. Occasionally I regurgitate my annoying opinions in written form. Thanks to my involvement with an upcoming Institute of Irish Studies project, I got the opportunity to ask the Taoiseach about the new Shared Island Unit. There were scenes on Whatsapp when I told my mum what I was doing. “Martin or Wee Higgins?” she texted, getting mixed up. In his speech, Micheál Martin …

It’s strictly dancing up to the Brexit deadline. Meanwhile “the border in the Irish Sea” takes shape in Northern Ireland

Brian Walker on October 20, 2020, 3:13 pm

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Archbishops’ letter image. FT The off- on- off again dance around the final stages of Brexit negotiations is taking place against a mounting clamour of confusion and anger over the crazy politics including the real implications of the threatened No Deal, about which the UK government postures so insouciantly. UK in a Changing Europe think tank says their modelling with the LSE of the impact of a no-deal Brexit suggests the total cost to the UK economy over the longer …

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. …