Government – Page 4 – Slugger O'Toole

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 …

Removing statues is a revolutionary gesture. Is that what’s needed?

Brian Walker on June 9, 2020, 4:52 pm

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Queen Victoria being removed from the front of the Dail Fergus on Monday nailed it. In the current atmosphere the statue of Oliver Cromwell speaks for itself. Perched in front of Westminster Hall the Victorians who erected it were celebrating the victory of Parliament over the royal tyrant Charles 1. But even leaving aside the massacres of Drogheda and Wexford, this distorts Cromwell’s record. He sent the troops in to expel Parliament not once but twice and instead ruled …

Between the constraints of collapsing lockdown and the exhilaration of anti- racist protest, which would you choose?

Brian Walker on June 7, 2020, 8:30 pm

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BLM. Woe betide you if you need the acronym explained. The tide of Black Lives Matter protest has swept across the Atlantic and across the world, following in the wake of Covid 19. Point out the risk of mass infection caused by close encounter at demonstrations and you risk being called a closet racist by some. Politicians are gambling that there won’t be a second spike despite clear warnings from the north of England. For so many young people champing …

From Northern Ireland to the US, from 1968 to today, the camera is a powerful catalyst for change

Brian Walker on June 5, 2020, 6:31 pm

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The horrific image of policemen in Minneapolis caught in the act of slowly choking George Floyd to death has prompted the thought : how different would have been the course of the Troubles if they’d been waged under the eyes of 24/7 live news coverage and video cameras with sound on mobile phones? Would a whole race of citizen journalists, citizen terrorists and citizen security forces have been created all videoing each other like crazy? Might violence amounting to …

Stormont has just performed better than Westminster. Signs of a new era dawning for the Northern Ireland Assembly

Brian Walker on June 3, 2020, 12:10 am

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Social distance voting at Westminster. Just as Westminster makes an ass of itself over voting against digital voting, Stormont enters a more hopeful new era. It’s complicated, even tortuous, but that’s a positive virtue compared to the old familiar choice between deadlock and carve up. Correction I earlier reported the voting wrongly for lack of information. It was even more complicated than I supposed. I’m indebted to Sam McBride of the Newsletter for explaining how the DUP and Sinn Fein …

Our own populism holds us back in Northern Ireland

Gareth Brown on June 1, 2020, 5:14 pm

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For a part of the world that relies so heavily on compromise to literally allow public administration to function, we don’t do nuance very well. You need only look at the public outcry to the mere suggestion that we may have to pay for our own water back when the New Decade, New Approach deal was agreed as the latest evidence of our own self-defeating populism. The uncomfortable, and unpopular, truth is that this mindset holds us back in Northern …

Is authority split between the UK government and devolved “nations” helping or hindering the management of the pandemic?

Brian Walker on June 1, 2020, 12:00 pm

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Has the management of the pandemic further weakened the Union or behind the political noise, proved that Westminster and the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are essentially working well together? No doubt an only partly suppressed competition to win credit with the voters at the end of the day is being waged. But cooperation is to an extent made more difficult because the division of responsibilities isn’t always clear. The devolved governments run for example health and education …

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 …

Will the promise of light touch, low regulation for the border in the Irish Sea at our ports be fulfilled?

Brian Walker on May 21, 2020, 8:35 am

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Larne Harbour If we have to have a border in the Irish Sea it would be great to keep it cheap and simple. That’s the powerful appeal of the British “Attitude to the Northern Ireland Protocol” available here in full. It contrasts with all the complex thicket of process in the EU version supported by a chorus of Europhiles. After all the UK government should know; they will implement it not the EU. It isn’t at all clear how the …

Differences over Covid management within the UK shouldn’t be exaggerated but they are provoking a rethink of how the UK is governed

Brian Walker on May 19, 2020, 1:01 am

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Schadenfreude at the state of the United Kingdom is a familiar default sentiment among republicans who comment in Slugger. They believe that mishandling of Brexit and now Covid is evidence of terminal decline. The notion is not limited to those predisposed against the UK . It crosses the community. What encourages the republican- minded depresses unionist Cassandras like Alex Kane. The most eloquent is the Guardian columnist Martin Kettle. To the surprise of many of those watching, and perhaps even …

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 …