Have we got a deal that the DUP and Sinn Fein sign up to or not? By Thursday midnight, it wasn’t clear. Will all parties turn up to the reconvened Assembly? By the time you read this we should know. In the meantime we have – a document .. But Arlene Foster’s verdict looks favourable.. “On balance we believe there is a basis upon which the Assembly and Executive can re-established in a fair and balanced way… This is not …
The Newsletter editorial is full of alarm and self pity. Its vehemence is slightly surprising as the paper has been no critical supporter of the DUP. It has been highlighting their weaknesses throughout. So it cannot be greeted just by schadenfreude. It needs a considered answer. For three years, no Conservative and Unionist (as they sometimes style themselves) minister or prime minister has uttered a word of criticism of Sinn Fein. Think about that. The crisis in the NHS …
DUP 8 seats (-2), 30.6% (-5.4%) SF 7 seats (nc), 22.8% (-6.6%) Alliance 1 seat (+1), 16.8% (+8.9%) SDLP 2 seats (+2), 14.9% (+3.2%) UUP 11.7% (+1.4%) Let’s say it clear. This is a great result for Northern Ireland. It’s simplistic to call it a victory of nationalism over unionism. It shows that voters on both sides of the divide are capable of breaking out of the monolithic duopoly. The DUP and SF have been punished for Stormont deadlock and …
PA Media, Reuter’s, AFP Whatever the result of this election, it will be greeted mainly with foreboding outside the ranks of the winning party, an interlude rather than a denouement in the tortured saga of Brexit. Trust will remain as elusive as ever as another chapter of story is opened. The campaign is riven by lies and fantasy. There is a chorus of comment along these lines in the London papers today. What impels politicians in these directions? We can …
This is a very strange election campaign from the Conservatives. The Tory messaging for the final week is all wrong. My browser is full of Tory ads calling on me to “Get Brexit Done” when everyone knows Boris is all about that; if anything, they risk alienating the key group of Remainers who voted Tory in 2017. The Tories are currently hanging on to just five-eighths of these voters, and any further slippage could be fatal. As far as potential …
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 …
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 …
TW: This article contains references to sexual and domestic violence. On the 24th October 2017, the UK Supreme Court considered Northern Ireland’s abortion laws. The case was taken by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. In its judgment on the 7th June 2018, the Court found that the Commission did not have standing to take the case but found, obiter, that Northern Ireland’s laws breached Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The High Court in Belfast made …
Last week 31 MLAs including the DUP, TUV and UUP signed a petition and sent it to the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly. That petition has led to a recall of the institutions. Tomorrow, the Assembly will sit for the first time since the death of Martin McGuinness. The prospect of the Assembly meeting again has many people raising questions. Can MLAs stop the introduction same sex marriage and abortion reform? Is there any prospect of a government being …
After suffering three defeats in two days, by early next week Boris Johnson may well be forced to swallow his words and accept a Commons majority Bill to ban No Deal. The pressure on Labour would then become irresistible to lift their ban on a general election. But that poses at least two dilemmas for Labour. Do they follow Corbyn’s instinct and go for an election almost straight away on say 15 October, two days before the EU Council meeting? …
We are in worse confusion over Brexit than anything in modern times, short of total breakdown and conflict. On one side there is a withdrawal agreement that will never pass this House of Commons. On the other there is the persistence with a backstop that threatens an outcome it is designed to prevent. This is not a rational situation. And yet the train is on course to hit the buffers. Boris Johnson will have satisfied himself that he has gone …
Good to see Newton following up the implications of Alliance’s electoral successes From the Irish Times Sinn Féin and the DUP both want to preserve the veto for their own purposes. How sustainable would that be if Alliance doubled its Assembly representation, given it has just doubled its council and European votes? In theory, none of this would break the rules. In practice, it would make designation – a foundation of devolution – look redundant and perverse. Alliance’s breakthrough could …
It’s painful to watch Tory leadership runners tying themselves up in knots over the choice of Deal or No Deal. Some of them are ducking and diving, others go in for the full kamikaze. The situation is so dire that the Chancellor Philip Hammond is offering himself as the fallback voice of sanity candidate. All of them so obviously want to keep sweet the hard line activists who’ll decide their fate that it’s almost unkind to keep baiting them. But …
Photo-PA After the European election – zombie or real life, who knows? – we’re in the even odder position of politics in Northern Ireland looking ever so slightly healthier than the politics of the UK as a whole. I compare NI with “UK” rather than “GB” because the Westminster scene presents the DUP with tough choices I’ll come to later. While I haven’t heard a cheep from the Stormont talks as they (presumably) prepare to resume, the Alliance surge in …
We will leave the EU on 31 October, deal or no deal.” This is Boris Johnson’s mission statement, fresh out of the leadership traps . Typical Boris, brave or giving an unnessary hostage to fortune, depending on your point of view. Even at this crucial moment, Boris doesn’t do caution. The collapse of Theresa May’s premiership could bring about an even more volatile and dangerous phase, as the latest deadline of October 31 approaches. The euro election results will show …
Theresa May’s voice broke as she reached the end of her resignation speech. Known as the ‘Maybot’ throughout her premiership her exterior finally cracked. She sounded close to tears as she said it had, ‘been the honour of her life’ to ‘serve the country that I love.’ She wasn’t this emotional during the Windrush scandal, a horrifying disaster of her own making. May’s resignation starts the bell ringing for the Conservative Party leadership contest. Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom, Jeremy Hunt …
As today’s Euro elections consign the two main parties of the UK to minority positions, their struggle to reclaim relevance will begin. The parties are obsessed with themselves more than with sorting Brexit but sorting Brexit will remain the acid test of survival. As Peston points out: YouGov shows backing for a hard or no-deal Brexit at 40% via intentions to vote for the Brexit Party (a staggering 37%) and UKIP.Whereas support for a referendum would ALSO be 40%, aggregating …
Theresa May is back again looking for DUP support to get the withdrawal Bill through the Commons either before 23 May the day of the Euro parliament elections or in mid- June, if her party haven’t turfed her out by then. Her bid for support presumably features a customs arrangement with regulatory alignment added in order to dispose of the bogey of a border down the Irish Sea. The pitch hasn’t worked so far with the DUP or in those …
Brice Dickson, normally a sober sounding academic lawyer and a former head of the NI Human Rights Commission was first famous for recanting on his recommendation for an “all singing, all dancing” NI Bill of Rights. In the Newsletter today Brice has boldly entered the fray of the all party talks at Stormont to point out flaws in Sinn Fein’s starting position. Sinn Fein has abused the concept of human rights by setting up such rights as pre-conditions for …
The latest set of Northern Ireland political talks look like a walk in the park compared to struggling through the tangles of Brexit. On the brink of transition, the British government is in a poor position to exert the kind of pressure to nudge the parties towards agreement. Some signs of life can be seen though. British- Irish cooperation has at resumed and is even managing to iron out some of the problems caused by Brexit over the common travel …
