It’s the saddest of ironies that Lyra McKee was promoting and living a lifestyle that was the powerful counter to the old siren calls of nineteenth century militant nationalism and imperialism – just the thing to drag bored and disaffected youth out of its rut. Her grieving partner Sara Canning and the rest of her family will take comfort from the fact that Lyra will live on in her work and the example of her life. As an insightful and …
If what Peston hears is true, the comfort blanket of a long extension of Article 50 has been swept from under MPs’ feet and a binary choice between No Deal and No Brexit is shaping up. If the EU grants only the shortest of extensions at their emergency summit to the end of May – to just after the European elections – the pressure will reach fever pitch for the Commons to agree a new deal centering on the customs …
In her fireside chat from Chequers, Theresa May spoke with typically unconscious irony. But she surely right when she said people expect political parties to work together to solve Brexit. Such a pity it took her nearly three years to realise it, although whether an earlier epiphany would have produced a Brexit consensus I very much doubt. I suspect a cliff hanger was always on the cards and a breakup of the parties may happen yet. The fact is these …
In 2015, Emma DeSouza married her American husband, Jake, in a ceremony in Belfast. Later that year, the couple applied for an EEA residence card. Their application relied on the 2006 EEA Regulations and was grounded in Mrs DeSouza’s Irish citizenship. In September 2016, to the couple’s surprise, their application was declined. In giving its reasons for refusing Mr DeSouza’s residence card, the Home Office referred to Mrs DeSouza’s citizenship. She was born in Northern Ireland and, in the Home …
A Twitter blizzard, floods of Live updates and lurid headlines convey the pace and drama of events. Tory Brexiteer fury as May is seen as recruiting Corbyn to pass a soft Brexit. A secret ballot on Theresa May’s leadership *will not* be granted by 1922 committee of all Tory backbenchers – the feeling is it will only add to instability. They can’t hold a formal process because December’s vote gives May a one year grace period. Asked one rhetorically: …
This suggested solution to the Brexit crisis is offered by Willie McCarter, for many years one of our leading business people, with long experience of north-south and international manufacturing and trade, becoming CEO of Fruit of the Loom’s operations based in the north west, 1987-97. He was also a leading fund raiser in the US for community and heritage projects to promote development and reconciliation here as chairman of the International Fund for Ireland, 1993-2005. As the threat of …
Image by permission of Parliament “Anything can happen in the next 12, 11, 10 days” This is the pretty safe prediction of the Institute for Government, the think tank of former civil servants and bright young para-politicians who hug the inside track closer than most. One of the institute’s chiefs Jill Rutter would be earning a fortune if she’d been paid a decent fee for all her media appearances in recent days and weeks. Back on the IfG website Jill …
True to form, the gambit to separate out withdrawal terms from the rest of the package has failed in advance. For the DUP this wheeze may be even less attractive than the May deal as it doesn’t even include the legal assurances they rejected (courtesy Sam McBride of the Newslettter for the thought). Yet again the figures don’t add up for the Daily Telegraph and the entire media. On Thursday night Mrs May still needed to persuade 52 Tory rebels …
“It was like binge-watching Borgen,” somebody said. But after all the drama , nothing is certain today – Theresa May’s “ back me then sack me” resignation, a third meaningful vote, even Brexit with a deal – except that the DUP will not vote for the withdrawal agreement. Nigel Dodds should have removed any lingering doubt: “The DUP do not abstain on the Union.” The deep state of main party disintegration was revealed in last night’s votes. In what …
Oliver Letwin Rather than the hoped for negotiated peace, Brexit skirmishing is shaping up into a formal struggle between Theresa May’s crumbling minority government and the inchoate majority of soft Brexiteers in the House of Commons. Battle is finally joined between those who want to retain a close relationship with the EU and the committed minority of MPs who long for a clean break. It has polarised to a contest between No Deal and No Brexit in which the default …
The DUP’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds has denounced Mrs May’s entire approach in a statement that all but guarantees her deal will not pass next week. The outcome of yesterday’s EU summit seems to have been the last straw. The DUP rejection also casts severe doubt on whether the confidence and supply arrangement that gave her a working majority can survive, at least under her leadership and without a hard Brexit prime minister succeeding her and able to deliver it. …
Has their old enemy David Trimble provided the DUP with useful ammunition to support Mrs May’s deal? We’re told she will only make a third attempt at securing the Common’s agreement this week if she can be sure of winning a majority. And for that DUP support is crucial, not only in terms of numbers but for their influence with the ERG. “It was the Attorney General wot wrecked it” was the Brexiteer verdict after last Tuesday’s debacle, when their …
A timely reminder, should one be needed, from Newton Emerson in the Irish Times this week, that when Sinn Féin talk about ‘agreement’ on the “need to remove legacy policing from contemporary policing” what they mean is “No prosecutions, please.” From Newton Emerson in the Irish Times It is all or nothing on dealing with the legacy of the Troubles. Either all sides must face the same prospect of prosecutions and convictions, or all sides must be given an amnesty …
After the chaos of last week, leading media reflect sharply differing views on the prospects for a third meaningful vote on Tuesday. The Leave – supporting Telegraph newspapers have emerged as the unlikely cheerleaders for Mrs May’s battered deal. If the deal passes, No 10 officials say the necessary legislation will have cleared the Commons by April 25, paving the way for a new Brexit Day in the final week of May or first week of June, according to the …
What a topsy turvy world is conjured up by the spectre of No Deal. Despite yesterday’s vote to abandon it and with the extension of Article 50 to come, the nail hasn’t been yet driven through its heart. What happens when the usual parameters of behaviour are abandoned, the perverse effect, is every much in evidence. In an openly divided cabinet, a chancellor who defies his prime minister by warning against No Deal and then votes for it. A …
The image says it all – the Daily Mail’s prediction
Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London
It’s a snap shot in a febrile atmosphere I know, but who can be surprised? A new poll from the Irish Times and Ipsos/MRBI – in fact parallel polls north and south – find that 59 per cent of Northern Ireland voters want a special arrangement for Northern Ireland for no checks on the border – even if that means some checks on goods travelling between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The poll also found that 67 per cent of voters …
It is quite an event when a minister has to return to the despatch box of the Commons to correct a misstatement – in this case one so elementary it beggars belief, although in tune with her basic ignorance of local politics. Speaking in the House of Commons, Mrs Bradley was responding to a question from DUP MP Emma Little Pengelly about legacy issues. “Over 90% of the killings during the Troubles were at the hands of terrorists, every single …
Alan and Mick have done sterling work in reporting and commenting on the Alliance and Fianna Fail conferences, with the SDLP in tow for the latter. From me at a distance they prompt the following reflections. Real politics cannot be about endless positioning, it has to be about policies, doing things for the people , how to raise and spend the money – you know, the stuff you read about what happens in other places. The SDLP’s agenda is too …
Suddenly, over historic cases stretching back almost half a century, legal developments are emerging that inject a new – and to me unexpected – momentum into dealing with the past. The hard pressed PSNI, so eager to hand over its role in historic cases to the proposed Historic Investigations Unit, has done its controversial job over Bloody Sunday and John Downey. Inevitably in Northern Ireland, reaction to this fresh impetus could overtake Brexit as a divisive issue – at least …
