UK – Page 25 – Slugger O'Toole

Brussels negotiations failed to underpin the principles of the Belfast Agreement…

Mick Fealty on January 29, 2019, 9:31 am

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There’s growing criticism in Dublin of the government’s strategy of putting all its eggs in one backstop basket (of which more anon). Government and opposition spokesmen alike respond that actually, the backstop was one of Theresa May’s clever ideas. However, Paul Bew has an interesting line on the matter: The Withdrawal Agreement, alas, places key areas of such co-operation entirely under the operation of a new EU-led regime – a regime which begins from day one of the implementation of …

Delay, delay and more delay…. High Noon next week – latest!

Brian Walker on January 29, 2019, 12:24 am

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So where are we? On Monday morning, things were looking up for the prospects of Theresa May at least getting through the latest most momentous week in British politics since King Billy landed at Brixham ( I made the last bit up). By the afternoon, the rot had set in. On Monday evening, Mrs May took even cabinet ministers by surprise and laid her authority on the line at eleventh hour . Rather than risk fatal rejection directly, she did …

Podcasting Brexit

Paul Gosling on January 28, 2019, 8:28 pm

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Podcasts are a useful medium, even though listener numbers are not always massive. But if considered as an alternative to a series of public meetings, their value is significant. They can be cheaper and gain more listeners than would be attracted to a meeting. They can be a way of collecting together different voices, without the need to bring them all together in one place, on one date. And, we can guess, they attract a very different audience. Since early 2018, the Holywell Trust …

“the big message from Saturday was that the Northern nationalist mood of resentment, annoyance and frustration needs to be heeded.”

Pete Baker on January 28, 2019, 2:54 pm

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[Having thrown their toys out of the pram two years ago… – Ed] ANYhoo… In the Irish Times, Gerry Moriarty reports from the nationalist “gurn-fest” in Belfast at the weekend. From the Irish Times report Essentially this was nationalism speaking to nationalism although there were few people in the hall from a unionist or Protestant background. Unionist politicians weren’t invited but they will have heard the message nonetheless, and will have been alarmed by it. Southern politicians including Minister for Education …

The Transfer Test: It’s time for an education rethink

Sarah Creighton on January 28, 2019, 9:13 am

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On the 25th January my Twitter and Facebook timeline was full of worried, stressed parents. All of them were anxiously waiting for AQE/PPTC results, due on the 26th. The emotions on display ranged from hope to dread. I sat the 11+ when I was in school. P.7s these days have to sit three, sometimes four, one-hour exams over the course of multiple weekends if they want to get into a grammar school. Thankfully there are plans for pupils to sit …

No Deal alarm is rising on both sides of the border

Brian Walker on January 26, 2019, 12:12 pm

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Ah the old, old days! With so much concentration on the Westminster bubble, it’s easy to forget that the pressures of Brexit operate in several directions. Cracks in the facade of unity among EU 27 are appearing on the surface as the prospect of No Deal by default refuses to go away. Irish alarm is by no means unique. As everybody always knew, solidarity with EU 26 leaves the Republic uniquely exposed to a particularly inelegant game of political poker …

The DUP seem poised to bail out Theresa May. Will the EU be impressed?

Brian Walker on January 25, 2019, 11:52 pm

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After that cosy little dinner at Chequers, the Downing St spin machine duly delivered straight to The Sun THE DUP have privately decided to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal next week when she toughens it up, in a major breakthrough for No10. The Sun can reveal that delicate deliberations are now ongoing between the Ulster unionist party’s leaders and the PM. In a crucial shift, it has emerged that the DUP are now willing to accept a backstop as long as …

On Brexit be careful, for you tread on my myths

Brian Walker on January 24, 2019, 2:16 pm

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For British and Irish readers alike, Fintan O’Toole is a leading scourge of Brexit, delving deep into British history and culture to explain its mainsprings. For champions of diversity suffused with Brit guilt about unresolved issues of empire and the shifting sands of identity, there’s a thrilling novelty about an Irishman with his history of victimhood, even one with such a cosmopolitan outlook, diagnosing British ills and offering lessons from Ireland’s new minted – and more confident- present. Thank God …

Brexit panic surfaces in Dublin but the EU is implacable on No Deal consequences

Brian Walker on January 23, 2019, 9:12 pm

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Last night I managed to survive the Ivan Rogers Experience, ( YouTube) a remorseless dissection of the entire Brexit debate which was as depressing as it was impressive. With good reason, Rogers is known as the Eeyore among Brexit experts. He was the UK ambassador to the EU who quit in disgust six months into Theresa May’s premiership. Remorselessly he spelled out the defects of every option now facing the UK, including remaining or re-applying. He laid about him with …

Review of Guy Beiner’s “Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster”

SeaanUiNeill on January 22, 2019, 4:41 pm

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“This is the past and it has to stay in the past. We don’t want to see any more of it.” Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster, Guy Beiner, Oxford University Press, 2018. Over the weekend the PSNI were called to manage an incident with a car bomb within the Walls of Derry. The car was parked in Bishop’s Street, just by the courthouse and directly across the road from the Masonic Centre that …

Opinion may be swinging but even DUP supporters favour a soft Brexit. What are the DUP doing to help bring this about?

Brian Walker on January 22, 2019, 1:54 pm

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Polling results on Brexit vary widely according to the questions asked and the sequence of events in Parliament and between the UK and the EU, a major analysis of recent polls has found. Mrs May’s persistence with her deal despite last week’s massive majority against it suggests that even the most dramatic results can be regarded as unstable or heavily conditional. Some results however are clear enough. Unionists and nationalists are deeply divided on whether there should be a second …

Methinks thou does not protest enough…

Patrick Murdock on January 22, 2019, 12:02 pm

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Last Tuesday as the MP’s voted overwhelmingly to reject Theresa Mays’s Brexit deal, I voiced my support of the People’s Vote by attending the protests in Parliament Square which was happening as the votes were cast in Westminster. As well as the large vocal crowd that had gathered, I listened to a number of speakers voice their Brexit anger with speakers ranging from the usual Politicians and Celebrities but also frontline NHS staff and factory workers. Two students from Belfast …

With the Conservative and Labour leaders now under internal pressure, MPs on both sides of the chamber move to take control

Brian Walker on January 22, 2019, 12:15 am

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. The moment of Brexit decision has shifted yet again – closer and closer to default crash out of the EU on 29 March. Theresa May has confirmed that plan B is plan A – basically the deal that was so massively rejected a week ago. But the dynamics have changed. Next Monday she will move a neutral motion to the Withdrawal Bill taking note of her statement today. This will allow amendments to be moved with alternative proposals for …

Varadkar offers a way out of deadock – or a hedge against failure?

Brian Walker on January 21, 2019, 10:44 am

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The UK national papers are united in hopelessness over May’s latest strategy, tempered only by disbelief. Plan B is Plan A. Even the cheerleader for Brexit the Daily Telegraph is not impressed. The Europe editor slaps down the chief political correspondent’s “ exclusive.” Theresa May is considering amending the Good Friday Agreement as part of a fresh attempt to unblock the Brexit logjam, The Daily Telegraph understands. Peter Foster But the mere suggestion that a British government wants to ‘amend’ the Good Friday Agreement should …

The Front Runner – Gary Hart’s campaign implosion and the fall out on the women around him – has much changed in 30 years?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on January 20, 2019, 9:00 am

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When should a politician’s private life impact their public campaign? In this film, while the replay of the 1987 editorial and political conversations around the investigations into Gary Hart’s personal life are interesting, and the mobile phone and early Apple Macintosh props are fun to revisit, it’s the invasion of privacy of young women involved with married politicians and the seeming continued absence of editorial protection that are perhaps most disturbing to watch thirty years later.

Backstop terms are in prospect in any final deal. Unionists cannot afford to stand apart

Brian Walker on January 19, 2019, 4:42 pm

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Unfashionable though it may be to ask: do the DUP have a point when they object so strongly to the backstop? Undoubtedly it confers special status on Northern Ireland but in a form nobody likes, even nationalists who called for it. Mrs May’s deal a.k.a. the withdrawal agreement, is presumed dead ; the backstop is only sleeping. The bitter controversy surrounding it dramatically expresses the fundamental difference of outlook between the legalistic approach of people schooled from the beginning in …

No, Brexit Britain doesn’t want her Empire back…

Mick Fealty on January 19, 2019, 9:17 am

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Brexit is about a lot of things, but one thing I agree with John Lloyd it is not (for the vast majority at least) is lost Empire. The sheer narrowness of the vote even in England ought to give some our more enthusiastic purveyors of this line some pause for thought. During the week, John Lloyd, an unenthusiastic remain voter, laid out a more realistic view of the matter to Ivan Yates on Newstalk.. The interview came on foot of …

In the Brexit chaos political maturity is becoming a scarce commodity…

Mick Fealty on January 18, 2019, 6:47 pm

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It is hard to escape the impression that there’s been a creeping but potentially catastrophic loss of political maturity across the west. Every opportunity to act as a states(wo)man, it seems, is actively being refused because… Well, you can take your pick of excuses. In the capital of the richest country in the world, federal civil servants now face the loss of a second monthly cheque, and are turning up on breadlines, or serving up to fellow workers. They continue to …

Brexiteers at bay after the first day of May talks widens internal party splits

Brian Walker on January 18, 2019, 12:23 am

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As Paul Waugh aptly says in Huffpost.. The lectern moment’ really is wearing thin as a useful dramatic device for Theresa May. She’s stood on the steps of No.10 so many times now that she’s devalued the currency of its impact. And after this week’s shattering defeat of her Brexit plan, more than ever it seems like her Downing Street announcements are all words and no action. May rightly said the nation needs to ‘come together’, but showed little flexibility or humility needed to make …

Break-up of the parties or No Deal Brexit – the looming choice

Brian Walker on January 17, 2019, 4:51 pm

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As matters stand, we’re either heading for crash out No Deal or the main parties are heading for break-up. The Conservative and Labour leaders are dolally. Theresa May is listening but not to anybody who wants a customs union or a second referendum. Jeremy Corbyn will not only not meet her but has urged all Labour MPs not to meet her either. But this request in a letter to his MPs came too late to stop former ministers Yvette Cooper and …