“What we want to take off the table, before we even talk about trade, is any idea that there would be a hard Border, a physical Border, or a Border resembling the past . . . Then we’d be happy to move on to phase two.” “The UK insists that the issue cannot be tackled until the EU agrees to move to discussion of phase-two issues. Speaking at Iveagh House on Friday, Boris Johnson echoed Mrs May’s approach. “In order to resolve …
Want to know where we really are on Brexit? In three words, in a mess. Can we get out of it? Possibly at the eleventh hour, 10 pm on Friday 19 March 2019, just like the Good Friday Agreement in fact. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. As so often – like the Stormont standoff – the politics look more difficult than the rational solutions. The Irish and British prime ministers profess themselves in the dark about each others’ …
As a comparative outsider I’m struck by how most commentators are obsessed with speculating about political positioning and identity narratives. This has produced numbing negativism and despair rather than the energy needed to approach the daunting but practical problem of trying to restore the Executive. Being case hardened and calloused, they endlessly refine their own explanations for obvious failure. They accept the parameters set by the DUP and SF too readily. To be fair, this is often the default caused by a …
From the British- Irish Parliamentary assembly meeting in Liverpool, as reported in the Sunday Times (£) Both Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland who tend not to vote — in either Westminster or assembly elections — would reject a united Ireland in the event of a poll, according to research presented to Irish and British politicians. “Non-voters” would be decisive in a border poll because they are likely to come out in record numbers, according to an analysis by Liverpool …
If the Irish Times is right, Dublin HQ has prevented Michelle O’Neill from striking a political deal. It is a deplorable fact that throughout this 10 month deadlock, so little is reliably known about party positions beyond nods, winks and notoriously unreliable mood music. At least in the Brexit negotiations the principals give some sort of account after every session. Times have changed since 1998. Then, reasons for secrecy were far more credible. The main agenda for much of the …
Irish Times Brussels correspondent Patrick Smyth demolishes the option of a border down the Irish Sea – not just because the UK government and the unionists won’t have it – but because it is against the economic interests of the Republic. This assessment follows the leaking of a report by the Office of the Irish Revenue Commissioners saying that an invisible border on the island is “impossible”. “It is probably somewhat naive to believe that a new and entirely unique …
Many commentators on the Brexit negotiations, including Irish ones scarred by the diktat of the 2010 bailout and understandably opposed to the whole idea, talk as if the EU Commission’s stance is not only immutable but deserves the status of Holy Writ, while the British position is purely faction-ridden and pathetic. The contrast is too stark. There is no absolute logic to the EU’s making an adamantine sticking point out of of undefined “sufficient progress” on UK financial contributions, citizenship …
The Irish Times is trumpeting “ breakthrough” in the Brexit talks over guaranteeing to preserve free movement of all European Union citizens between Ireland and Britain. But the headline oversells the overall story which dwells on the absence of breakthrough. . In truth ” free movement for EU citizens” was bound to be the result for the future of the Common Travel Area although the British have been making a meal of it and should have agreed it months ago, to start …
While not exactly a flood tide, the case for Irexit made by economist Ray Kinsella has become a trickle of two. With a few distinguished exceptions, “official” Ireland has bought into the “spin”’. It has made the European Union the custodian of our national interests. It has ceded its responsibility for negotiations on our future relationship with our nearest neighbour and largest single-country trading partner. This makes no sense. The risks of trading the approval of “Europe” for the long-term interests of …
Fintan O’Toole has been treating us to splendid summer of seminal articles that give the lie to the idea of a silly season. Today he offers the thought that in an echo of the old Churchill phrase, the parishes of Fermanagh and Tyrone are unravelling Brexit. While the image draws us in, it is also slightly forced. I’ve just returned from a break in Fermanagh which included a visit down the Marble Arch Caves. The system, if not the section …
Stand by for a round of attacks by the Tories on Labour for their dramatic shift to a clearer Brexit policy of remaining within the single market and the customs union for a time “as short as possible, but as long as is necessary”. But behind the sound and fury, look carefully too for signs of a split or “nuances” within Conservative ranks. More than ever, Brexit will either become the clear differentiator between the two main parties or create …
It’s clear already that the options easiest to negotiate with the EU in the UK position papers on customs and the Irish border are those which cross UK red lines and point to a soft Brexit by any other name. But this is far from the end of the story. The Institute for Government which has close links with Whitehall warns that free trade proposals will have to emerge first before we know how what sort of runners they really …
The British paper on the border is at last the meaty document long called for. It makes a several bold and practical suggestions for a seamless border but leaves much up in the air, laying down “ principles” for future negotiations. Many of these go far beyond the Irish border issues to the heart of Brexit itself. This is why the Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney thinks he smells a rat, warning almost immediately that Ireland will not become a …
No surprise then that little new has emerged in the British paper on the border. It’s right that as we shape the unprecedented model, we have some very clear principles. Top of our list is to agree upfront no physical border infrastructure – that would mean a return to the border posts of the past and is completely unacceptable to the UK.” What has become a bit clearer is a key point that the expected chorus of critics from British …
Once this period expires, the UK will look to agree either a “highly streamlined” border with the EU, or a new “partnership” with no customs border at all. This is the most optimistic reading of London’s proposal for “a temporary customs union.” introduced by David. It gives a pretty broad clue of what they’ll propose shortly for the Irish border. The customs proposal has met with circumspect replies from Brussels ans Dublin. Something more meaty is bound to greet the …
Theresa May has had the temporary excuse of being on holiday to explain away the continuing churn over Brexit inside and outside the government. No more. She returns from holiday this week. Little to comfort her awaits. Rather than a produce a rallying cry the promised publication of several major Brexit policy documents by midweek is likely to give both sides of the debate more ammunition to throw at each other. By themselves they cannot constitute a coherent strategy. But …
Extracts from the BuzzFeed report Many Remain voters now largely agree that Brexit should mean the UK taking full control over its borders, leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, and paying only a small “divorce bill” to the EU, according to major new academic research. A groundbreaking project by the London School of Economics and Oxford University surveying more than 3,000 people – which BuzzFeed News has seen exclusively ahead of its official publication – reveals that …
There has been a delayed reaction of critical comment on the Oireacthas report on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in the light of Brexit. The report called for special status for Northern Ireland within the EU but coupled it with a drive to work for unionist consent to a united Ireland. This would include a new New Ireland Forum of the type held in the early 1980s which recognised unionist Britishness but was repudiated by Fianna Fail and …
Britain is about to show its hand in Brexit negotiations in plans that reveal the U.K. wants a smooth route out of the European Union. The U.K. will seek a transitional customs agreement with the EU before moving to a new permanent relationship under plans sent to relevant members of Theresa May’s Cabinet for agreement before being published later this month, according to senior government officials. The proposal — if it is agreed politically — will be set out in an …
But Kevin is right: editors should edit and take responsibility for all copy. What more is there to say? Except that I hope he has a good pension plan. In his first comments on the issue, Myers said he believed “five or six” people would have seen the copy before it went to press. “I am the author of my own misery, I am the master of my soul, the author of my own misfortune. I must answer for what …
