UK – Page 20 – Slugger O'Toole

The EU takes control while May considers a vote on a second referendum

Brian Walker on April 9, 2019, 8:00 am

| Readers 7185

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 …

Is it possible to leave the EU without wreaking serious self harm? The answer No is all the more powerful, coming from a reforming Brexiteer

Brian Walker on April 8, 2019, 4:22 pm

| Readers 3610

Peter Oborne is an often emotional and brutally frank political journalist, an instinctive but very independent minded conservative. For the website Open Democracy he has penned a model recantation from his support for Brexit. It’s nearly three years since I, along with 17. 4 million other Britons, voted for Brexit. Today I have to admit that the Brexit project has gone sour. Brexit has paralysed the system. It has turned Britain into a laughing stock. And it is certain to …

Let’s cut Theresa some slack

Brian Walker on April 8, 2019, 12:47 pm

| Readers 711

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 …

Does Political Violence Work? #imaginebelfast

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 7, 2019, 8:30 am

| Readers 2644

QUB pro-vice-chancellor Professor Richard English delivered a 40-minute talk on the topic of Does Political Violence Work? during the recent Imagine! Belfast festival, looking at terrorism by non-state and potentially state actors as well as drawing some conclusions about the disjunction between why campaigns start, why people join up, what is achieved and how we post hoc rationalise what happens.

Emma DeSouza: None of us benefit from the Home Office’s position

Sarah Creighton on April 5, 2019, 6:23 pm

| Readers 6800

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 …

We Are Irish Too – Fact Checked

Emma DeSouza on April 4, 2019, 10:49 pm

| Readers 10040

I somewhat accidentally uncovered a change to the UK immigration rules recently that will have a serious impact on the people of Northern Ireland. On March 7th the UK Government changed the definition of an EEA national. The new definition states that EU citizens that also hold British citizenship will not meet the definition of an EEA national under the UK’s immigration rules, and will be unable to apply under the EU settlement scheme. In essence, they will be regarded …

Tory and Labour splits widen as Parliament gropes its way painfully towards a soft Brexit. Guess who might be about to hop on board?

Brian Walker on April 4, 2019, 1:33 am

| Readers 3105

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: …

The DUP are finally at loggerheads with Mrs May over how to protect “the precious Union”

Brian Walker on April 3, 2019, 1:01 am

| Readers 3769

What an Alice in Wonderland response from the DUP to Theresa May’s belated opening out to the opposition. Robert Peston tells us: According to ministers, the defining issue (of Mrs May’s apparent pivot to Labour and a soft Brexit) was that if there was a no-deal Brexit “we’d have to go to direct rule in Northern Ireland” says one. “Disaster. Huge risk. Of all legacies, the break-up of the Union [of the UK], the worst for a PM. She’ll never …

The common sense solution to the Brexit crisis comes from business, not politics

Brian Walker on April 2, 2019, 2:07 pm

| Readers 1496

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 …

Questions Over Latest Claims on Irish Citizenship Rights

Willow on April 2, 2019, 12:57 pm

| Readers 6077

On Sunday 31 March, Emma de Souza tweeted a two-page excerpt from an unidentified 294-page document and stated: ‘On March 7th the UKG changed the definition of an EEA citizen to exclude those who are also British. They have also stated that ‘”as a matter of law” the people of Northern Ireland are British by birth. NI born Irish citizens will not be considered EU citizens.’ Within the two pages was a definition of ‘EEA citizen’ as a person who …

Brexit choices narrow at peak crisis approaches, for the EU and Ireland too

Brian Walker on April 2, 2019, 11:00 am

| Readers 1233

As a riven cabinet meets in peak crisis mode, we might tentatively assume that Theresa May would prefer continuity to smash, such as a general election. For good reason , as voting guru Prof John Curtice reveals: Holding a general election could simply make Britain’s Brexit impasse even more difficult to resolve. That is the clear implication of where the parties currently stand in the polls. According to a projection based on the average of each company’s most recent poll, the …

My dream outcome. Ken Clarke, the sanest and oldest, to head up a cross party coalition

Brian Walker on April 2, 2019, 1:16 am

| Readers 3468

I could never have guessed it but the bums really did squeak in the Commons yesterday. The failure so far of the indicative vote process was a narrow squeak, but even so, it revealed a genteel amateurishness about the whole process. Clearly many of them failed to heed Ken Clarke’s s advice and vote right down the list. With so little experience of brokering deals and still inured to their party tram lines, they failed to caucus like Americans or …

Squeaky bum time for Brexit, as the roof closes in on Theresa

Brian Walker on March 31, 2019, 5:20 pm

| Readers 3796

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 …

Don’t despair of Westminster. This is what open debate looks like. It’s a big week for Varadkar too

Brian Walker on March 30, 2019, 5:40 pm

| Readers 3620

Next week under pressure of a deadline less than a fortnight hence, it may get worse before it gets better. What we’re seeing in the Commons would be perfectly rational if it weren’t happening so late. A minority government formed by a split party has lost control and attempts are being made to form an ad hoc majority in Parliament over the burning issue of the day. It’s a novel situation certainly, but talk of a disintegrating system, much less …

Brexit at a Belfast School Gate

Claire Mitchell on March 30, 2019, 10:56 am

| Readers 4639

Brexit staggers forward like a whiskey laced fever, and nobody at the school gate says its name. It’s 30th March. There’s no exit, no plan. The mums are stockpiling cans of beans. Not because of apocalypse. But because they expect the price of food to increase. They’re a practical lot. One friend had no money this week. Off to the food-bank. Straining to make polite conversation while trying, and failing, to hold back tears after pick-up. Over 30,000 food parcels were …

After May’s latest defeat, the DUP are feeling isolated over the border. Is Angela Merkel riding to the rescue?

Brian Walker on March 29, 2019, 7:35 pm

| Readers 6995

Theresa May’s hopes to bring her Brexit deal back to parliament again next week after it was rejected for a third time by MPs – and appears poised to trigger a general election if parliament fails to agree a way forward. Although decisive the reduced margin has put the alliance between the ERG and the DUP under great strain. As the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg has tweeted: “A brief marriage ends. DUP learning today that many in ERG = Brexiteers first …

Brexit stalemate and our increasing clumsiness in the handling our democratic lives…

Mick Fealty on March 29, 2019, 11:38 am

| Readers 1934

The problem with referendums is how they throw people (even the best of us) back upon too easily formulated binaries that take no account of outcomes. The most depressing thing about the Brexit referendum is not just how it has split the host country but its international repercussions. I voted remain and I’d do so again. Not because I can’t see what irritates Leavers (just see how getting rid of daylight saving time is being dealt with by simple majority …

This wasn’t what was supposed to happen on Brexit Day

Brian Walker on March 29, 2019, 12:02 am

| Readers 1784

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 …

Big Votes, Big Mess

Chris McKee on March 28, 2019, 10:15 pm

| Readers 935

According to Lenin, there are decades in history where nothing happens, and then sometimes weeks where decades happen. If that is true, then Brexit seems to have given us a third category entirely: a weekly cycle of impossible drama and contradiction that merely feeds into another baffling cycle of the same, where weeks feel like years, years sometimes like weeks, where so many things change, and yet, finally, nothing ever does. It’s like UK has sold the rights of its …

Northern Ireland’s Unique Entitlement to EU Rights and Benefits: Why the 3 Million is Really 4.8 and Counting

Emma DeSouza on March 28, 2019, 6:58 pm

| Readers 6367

There is a startling contrast between the EU and Westminster’s understanding of the unique status of Northern Ireland. In Strasbourg this week that was evident. A delegation including myself, Daniel Holder, Niall Murphy and Declan Fearon travelled there yesterday, to meet with a number of MEPs and senior EU staff to discuss the impact of Brexit on the rights of people in the north of Ireland. It was clear to me by the end of the trip – the EU …