Republic – Page 11 – Slugger O'Toole

New backstop plan ties the whole UK to the customs union to buy time for solving the border problem

Brian Walker on May 17, 2018, 8:11 am

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The rumour has now become fact (almost) Britain will tell Brussels it is prepared to stay tied to the customs union beyond 2021 as ministers remain deadlocked over a future deal with the EU, the Telegraph has learned. The Prime Minister’s Brexit war Cabinet earlier this week agreed on a new “backstop” as a last resort to avoid a hard Irish border, having rejected earlier proposals from the European Union. Ministers signed off the plans on Tuesday despite objections from Boris Johnson, the …

May tells Rees Mogg: with a hard border I’d not be confident of winning a border poll

Brian Walker on May 15, 2018, 10:40 am

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Times report Theresa May confronted Jacob Rees-Mogg at a meeting with Tory MPs designed to break the deadlock over Britain’s future customs arrangements with the EU, The Times has learnt. The pair clashed yesterday over the impact of rival plans on the Irish border, in what witnesses described as the prime minister “sending a tough signal” to hardline Brexiteers that she was not prepared to jeopardise the Union. It came after Mrs May went over the heads of her squabbling cabinet with a personal …

On Brexit we’re about to enter the eye of the storm before the relative calm

Brian Walker on May 11, 2018, 12:00 pm

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It’s the solemn duty of all professional commentators always to be interesting, even at the expense of consistency with writers in their own paper or even with themselves. And this is a terrific time for fascinating chaos and confusion. Where official “lines to take” are not banal they are tangled up and inconsistent, reflecting the fact that over Brexit, a chronically divided cabinet are singing like birds. Tension is ramped up before yet another deadline to be missed whether it’s …

Guardian exclusive. A home grown plan for checks at NI ports, rejected by the DUP but still in play

Brian Walker on May 4, 2018, 6:49 pm

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A backup plan to impose border checks on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK at ports and airports to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland after Brexit has been drafted by senior civil servants. Despite the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) angrily rejecting any suggestion of a border “in the Irish Sea”, a leaked paper reveals that officials have been working on a blueprint “to be deployed as necessary in the negotiation process” While acknowledging these …

Fears of joint authority surface as the Lords approve no border checks without Dublin consent

Brian Walker on May 3, 2018, 3:48 pm

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Sometimes –only sometimes – debates in Parliament tell us a lot more than a dozen columnists or a week of Nolan. And with much greater courtesy than the latter, needless to say. One such took place yesterday when the House of Lords supported moves to prevent a hard border after Brexit under which no new checks or controls could be imposed without the agreement of the Irish Government. If you think this would be innocuous enough you’d be wrong. Approval for Patten’s amendment …

If you were the EU’s chief negotiator, what would you say to Arlene Foster to make her happier?

Brian Walker on May 1, 2018, 1:11 pm

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Not exactly an unbiased report in the Daily Telegraph Michel Barnier has denied trying to split up the United Kingdom after strongly backing plans that would create a new border between Britain and Northern Ireland after Brexit. In an inflammatory address in Dundalk, Ireland on Monday, Mr Barnier denied there was a secret EU plan to pressure Britain into reversing Brexit by insisting on a backstop clause that would keep Northern Ireland in the EU’s Single Market and Customs Union. Arlene …

Political ferment is reflected in the GFA junketings, but no sign of a breakthrough

Brian Walker on April 11, 2018, 12:23 pm

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Will the DUP and Sinn Fein pay any attention to the eloquent pleas of the elder statesmen to return to the Executive? On the surface the answer appears to be no, unless something is going on behind the scenes we don’t know about. Local politics suffers from elder statesperson fatigue. This generation has learned how to take in their stride the high sounding generalities from popes, presidents and prime ministers past and present. The shock of the new wore off …

Trimble rains on the GFA parade with supposed threat from loyalist paramiltaries over Brexit terms

Brian Walker on April 8, 2018, 1:02 pm

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David Trimble has many qualities but spreading sweetness and light is not prominent among them. He has pricked the bubble of the GFA commemorations with a sinister warning. The one thing that would provoke loyalist paramilitaries is the present Irish government saying silly things about the border and the constitutional issue. If it looks as though the constitutional arrangements of the agreement, based on the principle of consent, are going to be superseded by so-called ‘special EU status’ then that …

With or without a good deal on Brexit, EU oversight of an all-island economy is looking likely

Brian Walker on March 29, 2018, 11:34 am

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Jim Allister QC is not the only one to spot the potential extension of north-south areas of cooperation under “the backstop”, the notorious Option 3 of the draft Withdrawal Agreement, as Newton Emerson reports. There’s quite a bit more from Professor Dagmar Schiek of Queen’s University and from human rights organisations north and south. With cooperation, authority follows. It is indeed a wonder that the DUP have not reacted more strongly. They seem to be putting their faith in a …

The next big Brexit issue- the future rights of EU/Irish citizens in the North

Brian Walker on March 22, 2018, 12:56 pm

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Another big Brexit theme has been overshadowed by the border conundrum – the future of citizens’ rights in Northern Ireland. The contention is that many of these will go unprotected when the UK withdraws from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the rulings of the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg, a key UK government aim. The Charter has greater force than the non-EU European Convention on Human Rights which is written into UK law as the Human Rights …

It has to be faced. Brexit will happen. The Irish border problem will not stop it

Brian Walker on March 20, 2018, 11:04 am

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It’s now clear to me that we convinced Remainers must accept that Brexit is going to happen. It will not implode through the weight of its own contradictions. There is no prospect of an alternative government that will halt the process. Yesterday felt like a real turning point. As a result of yesterday’s agreement on the transition period the EU leaders will ratify on Thursday, the UK will remain within the single market and the customs Union beyond the Leave …

After brinkmanship, agreement on the transition period, but another fudge on the border. The ” backstop” for Northern Ireland remains

Brian Walker on March 19, 2018, 1:14 pm

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Breaking….. I had just filed a piece below headlined “brinkmanship on the border “ when the Irish Times reported that that the British had agreed to accept a legal draft text containing the “ backstop” option 3 on keeping Northern Ireland in alignment with the EU after Brexit as part of transition terms for exiting the Union. RTE also has the story There is a huge provisio. Both sides want a comprehensive final deal that negates any need for special status …

Brinkmanship on the Border

Brian Walker on March 19, 2018, 12:16 pm

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Another day, another doubt. After a weekend of sherpa preparations for the EU summit on Thursday and Friday, both sides are still unsure they can reach an agreed position by tomorrow night on transition terms and duration for the UK’s departure from the EU. From the Irish Times preview of the David/Barnier meeting, it’s clear that the Irish government neither want nor need to take sole responsibility for imposing a veto on a transition timetable later this week. Irish and …

Dublin not expected to use their “border veto” against a transition deal for the UK

Brian Walker on March 18, 2018, 12:58 pm

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Brexit talks will become more intensive over the next six months and will feature a greater focus in the Irish border, according to the EU side. This week looks likes providing one of those so-called crunch moments when a key Brexit decision is reached in black and white but with grey edges. The UK are hoping for agreement on a transition period longer than December 2020 as currently mooted, during which the UK would pay full EU budgetary contributions. The …

Derry’s politicians should stop playing the victim and make more friends and influence people

Brian Walker on March 10, 2018, 8:22 pm

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Steve Bradley’s chastening post on Derry part 1 is remarkable for its detailed analysis and the volume of comment in response -greater I think than for any of the usual subjects I’ve seen in a long time. Certainly it touches a nerve with me. I left my Derry home to go to school in Coleraine and never lived there again after the fateful year of 1969 when the old order quite suddenly and easily fell apart, an arresting fact its …

More than the leadership of Arlene Foster it’s about what the DUP under unprecedented pressure, is for

Brian Walker on March 8, 2018, 12:12 pm

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In “Arlene Foster’s authority is ebbing away“, Newton assesses the pressure on her in the Irish Times. His fascinating analysis is the latest example of local Kremlinology peering into the suffocatingly tight networks that dominate these little parties. But new outside elements are at play as never before to supplement rapid change at home , like the unpredictable fallout of Brexit and pressures for social change from London and Dublin. But for these pressures to have full effect, they must …

Brexit battle lines drawn up, or the storm before the calm and other cliches

Brian Walker on March 7, 2018, 12:51 pm

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On the face of it, the prospects are looking grim again but it may only mean that they’re getting down to business – at last- again. The BBC headlines “Brexit trade talks battle lines drawn.” And the FT reports that the EU – the authoritative Council of the nation states and not just the Commission of bureaucrats – are taking a hard line for future negotiations with the UK – slapping down Theresa May’s supposedly emollient attempt last week as …

“Northern Ireland to become an EU province” after a Brexit breakdown. Did we not know that already?

Brian Walker on February 27, 2018, 11:46 am

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Tomorrow the EU will publish its legal version of December’s joint Report or Withdrawal Agreement that was supposed to guarantee against a hard border. The intention is to remove any idea of a fudged political deal that could be changed later. It will however become the EU’s law not the UK’s. Britain will argue that Withdrawal Agreement will be superseded as a result of a final free trade agreement. However as has been well trailed, it will omit the guarantees …

A timely reminder that today’s unionists and other non-nationalists have as big a stake in human rights as nationalists. Further polarisation must therefore be avoided

Brian Walker on February 26, 2018, 3:02 pm

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The stale stereotype that nationalists are all for civil rights and unionists fight them tooth and nail is challenged in an open letter signed by over 100 “civic unionists, pluralists and other forms of civic leadership” published in the Irish Times. It’s a riposte to similar letters from “ civic nationalism” appealing to the Dublin government “to defend the legal, human and language rights of Irish citizens in the North, and warning that the British government’s deal with the DUP …

Does Brexit threaten rights protection for Irish citizens in the North?

Brian Walker on February 22, 2018, 9:33 am

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What happens to a raft of human rights when we leave the European Union and the European Charter of Human Rights no longer applies? The question is raised by the leading constitutional expert Vernon Bogdanor. Successive UK governments (and I!) thought we had opted out of it for years, but the European Court of Justice ruled in 2013 that we hadn’t. Inevitably there is an Irish angle to this that may be of particular concern to Irish-EU citizens in Northern …