Scotland – Page 9 – Slugger O'Toole

SDLP to feed a key NI perspective into the EU’s negotiations with the UK?

Mick Fealty on June 28, 2016, 6:46 am

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So what to make of the implications of Brexit for Northern Ireland? To get the big one out of the road first, no one is going back to war. In fact of all the parts of the UK Northern Ireland is probably the calmest and the least hysterical, and as Newton Emerson put it last night, least embarrassing. There’s been no substantive response from the administration. The Executive has yet to meet and figure out how it will respond. Sinn …

Theresa Villiers: “ultimately it is parliament’s decision whether we repeal the 1972 European Communities Act or whether we don’t.”

Pete Baker on June 27, 2016, 7:22 pm

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Andy’s valiant attempt at providing clarity on the role of the devolved institutions in the UK’s withdrawal from the EU doesn’t appear to have worked for some of our local representatives. The Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Theresa Villiers, couldn’t have been clearer. “In the weeks and months ahead we will be working with both the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive on all these matters,” [Theresa Villiers] told BBC’s Sunday Politics show. “But ultimately it is parliament’s decision whether we …

Devolved legislatures and the EU

Andy Boal on June 26, 2016, 7:50 am

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Jim Fitzpatrick drew our attention to an interesting possibility the other day: (extract from Chapter 7 of The process of withdrawing from the European Union) The key issue here is the competency of Westminster to amend the Northern Ireland Act 1998, the Scotland Act 1998 and the Government of Wales Act 2006 (and 1998 to the extent that it is still in force) to remove the obligation to act within EU law without the consent of the relevant devolved legislature …

Democracy: Referendums, Petitions, and a Reality Check for Leavers and Remainers Alike

Gerry Lynch on June 26, 2016, 12:10 am

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2.5 million people have now signed a petition calling for a second referendum. I won’t be signing it. It’s pathetic. We had the highest turnout in an election for 24 years on Thursday. I think collectively we’ve made a bad decision. But it’s the decision we made. You know what, in democracy, you win some and you lose some. Sometimes the decisions are momentous. There we go. Grow up and get over it. Where were those 2.5 million people when …

I’m anti-Brexit but I’m more frightened of living in a country that uses referendums

Paul Evans on June 19, 2016, 9:00 am

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If I were offered a promise that Referendums would be banned in every European state in return for Brexit, it’s a deal I would accept in a heartbeat.

We can already see a post-Brexit economy emerging. It’s grim.

Gerry Lynch on June 14, 2016, 9:30 pm

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Here’s a confusing financial press headline from today: German 10-year sovereign bond yields turn negative for first time. What does that mean in plain English: it means traders are so worried about what the UK economy would look like post-Brexit, they’re pulling their money out of the UK, and actually paying the German government to let them lend it money. Read that sentence again to realise how deep the fear is. You’ve heard the scaremongering. This is what the reality …

Jonathan Powell blasts Brexit

Brian Walker on June 13, 2016, 5:22 pm

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On The View on the day the former PMs Major and Blair warned of the threat of Brexit to the Union and stability, Eamonn McCann erupted. It wasn’t “Blair, that man steeped in the blood of Iraq that brought peace”, he thundered (I quote him freely) “but the people of Northern Ireland who don’t want to fight each other. They are the peace process.” As a champion of the people en masse and in the abstract, Eamonn is surely right …

Unionism’s experience in NI should give Alex Salmond pause for thought on Derry’s Walls tomorrow…

Tom Gallagher on June 9, 2016, 11:52 am

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When travelling outside Scotland, Alex Salmond usually doesn’t miss an opportunity to characterise his Scottish National Party as ‘peaceful, civic, and inclusive’. He did it in Bilbao in January when he was receiving the Sabino Arana award from the authorities in the Basque Country. He is likely to bathe it in the same virtuous light this Friday when he comes to Derry to address the city’s Chamber of Commerce He will be in a place where anti-British nationalism is based …

EU referendum: The Reverse Sturgeon Option?

Paul Hagan on June 6, 2016, 11:02 pm

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The activities of dissident Irish republican groups is clearly something on the minds of many in Northern Ireland and Westminster. Following-on from the Home Secretary’s warning last month that a fresh attack was “a strong possibility” a number of arrests have been made at the gatherings of various dissident groups in different parts of Northern Ireland. One such recent event gathered less attention, on Saturday the hard-line republican group Éirígí launched their campaign for a “Leave” vote in the EU campaign. …

Hannan: Leaving the EU would be a leap into the light.

David McCann on June 4, 2016, 1:01 pm

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We are just under three weeks away from the referendum on whether the UK should continue to be a member of the European Union. For years, one of the strongest critics of the EU has been the Conservative MEP, Daniel Hannan. This weekend he is in Northern Ireland to make the case for us to leave the EU, I caught up with him in Belfast earlier this morning. I began by asking him how the campaign overall was going and …

More Brexitref alarms: could a Corbyn government deliver Irish unity?

Brian Walker on May 30, 2016, 4:16 pm

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When we’re taking about Brexit fears, Newton Emerson in the Irish Times has an outlier scenario that’s sounds plausible but is full of holes. He imagines the possibility of an early UK election out of the post-referendum chaos regardless who wins, with the Conservatives in worse disarray than Labour. Jeremy Corbyn gets SNP support to form a government in exchange for a second referendum. Independence is won. NI unionism is demoralised. Corbyn reverts Labour to active support for a …

Abandonment of policy and a growing ‘cult of managerialism’ in education…

Mick Fealty on April 12, 2016, 5:17 pm

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Interesting piece by Frank Furedi in the Times Educational Supplement this week. It’s a well-aimed dig at managerialisation within education. It highlights a broader degradation of policy-making in England, courtesy of several generations of activist politicians. Yet some knock-on effects are evident elsewhere too (not least in devolved regions where there’s a dearth of policy innovation so that London-originated fads can get consumed and replicated without a huge amount of added thought. The cult of the leader in school prevalent …

Northern Ireland’s first fact-checking service launched: FactCheckNI

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on April 8, 2016, 6:26 pm

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FactCheckNI — Northern Ireland’s first ever fact-checking service — was officially launched at the Skainos Centre in Belfast. The project — funded by the Big Lottery Fund through Building Change Trust — aims to influence public policy in regards to the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector, keep politicians right in terms of both their promises and their rhetoric, and also influence the general public by providing access to unbiased facts. Paul Braithwaite explained: “At Building Change Trust, we …

1916-2016 play Rebellion has its premiere in Glasgow…

Mick Fealty on March 17, 2016, 12:51 pm

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Worth a mention, given the day that’s in it. One of our bloggers Phil Mac Giolla Bhain has just ended a short run of his play Rebellion in his native Glasgow. Rebellion is themed around the rediscovery of a family history tracing one Glaswegian family back several generations to the 1916 Rising. Former Herald journo, Robbie Dinwoodie was there on Monday, I think… Elements which appealed to these Glasgow audiences, particularly the Rangers-supporting character who is the butt of many …

St Patrick’s Day a time to reflect on an openness that, at its best, Englishness encourages

Soapbox on March 16, 2016, 2:14 pm

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For St Patrick’s Day Mark Perryman outlines the meaning of the forthcoming Easter Rising Centenary for models of Britishness. St Patrick’s Day across England has always been more of a party than our own St George’s Day. Down the local, one of the best night outs of the year, a non-stop evening drenched in all things Irish. A celebration of Ireland’s freedom, which can never be entirely separated from its place in English, and British, history either. But the framing …

On #Brexit nothing is certain, even the assumption it would be followed by a Scottish exit

Mick Fealty on February 24, 2016, 4:38 pm

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Much of what happens in the Brexit debate we should probably take with a large pinch of salt, whether or not it comes from a camp you favour or not. It’s a bit of a leap into the dark, so not all of the consequences, either way, can be reliably foreseen. It’s likely to be a class of Project Fear Mk II. One line to be particularly sceptical of is the idea that if the UK comes out of the …

Orange, green…time for a new idea on ‘the border’ in between?

CM Johnston on February 11, 2016, 12:28 pm

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An excellent piece by Belfast Barman recently asked why, since the dream/ threat of a United Ireland allegedly defines our politics in Northern Ireland, we rarely hear the details of how exactly it would work discussed by those in favour or the precise, alleged horrors of such a thing debated by those strongly against. In an even more recent post Colum Eastwood, however, starts to think – in broad terms – about what might be needed to bring about a …

#Brexit would not be particularly good news for UK’s regions. But it’s not an exit visa either.

Mick Fealty on February 5, 2016, 4:28 pm

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So Brexit. The Tusk negotiations aren’t over yet, but there is a broad outline for a deal that changes the UK’s relationship with the EU. Sceptics say it is not enough. Yesterday’s YouGov poll puts the figure of those who want to leave where it needs to be if the Brexit campaign is to have any chance of success: leading 45% to 34% with 19% undecided. There are of course serious concerns at the implications for British Irish relations, and …

Referendum & devolution: 3 different pictures

Paul Hagan on January 22, 2016, 12:39 am

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The elections this May are almost certain to see the return of familiar faces of both nationalism and unionism. Of course I’m referring to the elections to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, whose electorates will go to the polls on 5 May and then again most likely later in the year for the referendum on whether or not to remain in the EU. Whilst there is unlikely to be a change of government in either devolved body, the …

Is a reformed federal UK within a reformed, more federal European Union an answer to the constitutional itch??

Mick Fealty on January 18, 2016, 9:07 am

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CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMES: David Torrance argues that the ideal, perhaps quixotic, answer to the constitutional itch is a reformed federal UK within a reformed, more federal European Union? For only that would give adequate expression to Scottishness as well as Englishness, Welshness and, more awkwardly, Northern Irishness.