UK

Polling Matters: What do the DUP want?

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Myself and Kieran Pedley chunking through the various polls and issues around the DUP and Brexit. What we didn’t anticipate was the very swift conclusion of Phase 1 talks. I’ve outlined three things they want: a frictionless border; best possible trade deal with Europe (a key aid to the first); and the U.K. (including NI) to be free to strike its own trade deals particularly with the developing world outwith the EU. This last is why the argument over terms …

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“The fact that all of the other parties in the Dáil rallied around to wave the green flag on Tuesday demonstrates not that the Government got it right but that it successfully pandered to populist sentiment”

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In the Irish Times, Stephen Collins on the risks involved in the Irish Government’s public positioning over the ongoing Brexit negotiations.  From the Irish Times article The British government and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) are the ones primarily responsible for Monday’s debacle, but the Irish Government didn’t exactly cover itself in glory. The way Tánaiste Simon Coveney jumped the gun with a premature radio interview on Monday morning and the subsequent mood music suggesting that the Irish side had …

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Brexit and the British Empire

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A spectre is haunting Europe. No, not that one. An uglier, messier one by far; the spectre of Empire. And if Europe is the haunted house in this metaphor, the UK is the creaking stairway where the spectre appears, Northern Ireland where you fancy you can hear it whisper in your ear. Brexit has shone a light on a lot of long hidden corners of the British psyche, none so alarming as the anti-Irish sentiment that has appeared since Taoiseach …

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May suggestion that Phase One can roll into Phase Two is not compliant with A50…

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Interesting development, coming in on the heel of the news that the British PM failed to share with the DUP, turns out that no only has Mrs May not told Mrs Foster what she was planning, she also has yet to discuss the matter of what sort of Brexit she wants with the Cabinet. That suggests she’s going to have major problems hammering this together. More concerning from an Irish point of view, she seems to think that “nothing is …

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“ambiguity… appears to have led Dublin and Brussels to interpret it as a maximalist position, while the DUP believed or were led to believe that it would or could be minimalist.”

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The parlous state of the Brexit negotiations has been generating more than the usual level of idle speculation, and arrant nonsense. [Including on Slugger? – Ed] No names, no pack drill… But there are some intelligent points being made, in some places, which are worth keeping in mind – if you are actually thinking about these things. Like other, usually reliable, observers, The News Letter’s Sam McBride, whilst initially a little puzzled by Monday’s developments, offered a coherent scenario yesterday. …

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Brexit is the definition of a national issue, but we must listen to what Unionists are telling us

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Stephen Donnelly in an interview on RTE yesterday at lunchtime, who said that whilst he is happy with the draft deal on the table over the border – Brexit, he says, is the very definition of a national issue – but we must listen to what Unionists are saying about Dublin’s tone. He points out that gaps were opening up because of a lack of back-channel contacts between the government in Dublin and the DUP’s own backroom teams: no one on …

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How brexit is destroying NI’s centre ground – and could take the Union with it

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The brexit negotations are not going well. During the course of the past few weeks, we’ve seen a sharp deterioration of Anglo-Irish relations as the Irish government found themselves with no choice other than to call out the UK government’s lack of preparation or proposals on how it would approach the sensitive matter of the Irish border in the context of the UK’s departure from the EU. Today, we’ve seen the DUP intervene to scupper an agreement that had been …

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#Brexit: the DUP and the Risks of Not Passing Go

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The DUP torpedoed today’s sensible UK-EU compromise deal on the border because, according to an Arlene Foster tweet, the party could not accept any deal which separates Northern Ireland politically from the rest of the UK. This will come as a great surprise to campaigners for marriage equality, liberalisation of the abortion laws, and comprehensive education. There is no great Unionist point of principle against the terms of what was on the table in Brussels earlier today, except on the …

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The DUP are barking up the wrong tree

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The DUP’s kneejerk reaction to the Times story that the Brexit sherpas are working on a plan to “avoid divergence” of regulations and standards on our island proves how insecure they feel the Union really is. According to the ancient rule of our politics that the insecure pay more attention to their opponents than their candid friends, they’ll receive perverse validation from Sinn Fein ‘s parallel rejection and their old jibe, “We always knew the Brits would betray ye. Whadida …

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Is this the magic bullet to sort the problems of Brexit and the border?

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  New version:  The Times is reporting that agreement is close on “regulatory convergence” on the island of Ireland even if there is a divergence between the UK and the rest of the EU after Brexit. The agreement would involve the devolution of a package of measures to the Assembly to help maintain common standards and regulations for agribusiness and electricity, gas and water which are substantially integrated on the island. Pressure to restore the Executive would therefore increase. A …

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Diarmaid Ferriter on Gerry Adams: “Many political careers end in failure; some just end in irony.”

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It’s worth quoting at length from historian Diarmaid Ferriter in Saturday’s Irish Times on the ironic legacy Gerry Adams leaves for Sinn Féin. Fianna Fáil continued to invoke its republican “heritage” while determinedly staying the revisionist course; the same conclusions are likely to be reached about Sinn Féin under Adams. One of the reasons for the self-righteous defensiveness beloved of Adams was precisely to mask the revisionism, or what has been referred to as the “creative ambiguity” of peace process …

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Local Environmental & Planning Governance Under Scrutiny (Somewhat)

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On the heels of another damning report on failures relating to compliance with environmental and planning rules, Northern Ireland will be subject to international scrutiny December under the aegis of the authoritative United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) Aarhus Convention. The Convention – named after the Danish city where it was adopted in 1998 – grants citizens rights and imposes on Parties (including the UK) and public authorities obligations regarding access to information and public participation and access to environmental …

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EXCLUSIVE POLL: Unionist supporters content with East West post #Brexit border controls…

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The dilemma facing Brexit negotiators on the ‘Irish border’ question is how to retain an invisible, frictionless, ‘soft’ North-South border in Ireland and somehow avoid the seemingly inevitable reality of the emergence of a ‘hard’ border if the UK leaves the single market and the customs union. Squaring this circle is a little tricky. It’s hard to have a border and not have a border all at the same time. Borders are a bit like boiled eggs, either hard or …

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Ireland and the border has emerged as the current acid test. In their own interests, Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin should give Theresa May space to pass it

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The current British position is admirably described by James Forsyth in the Brexit leaning, Conservative supporting Spectator. I can do no better than to quote it at length. It covers a viewpoint that cannot be dismissed by ardent Remainers like me.  Whatever the mood music, it will be taken seriously in the chancelleries of Europe. For they see that the British are gradually shifting. The next few weeks are the  time for quiet diplomacy with the megaphone put away and the tweeting held in check.

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Robert Peston’s radical solutions for Brexit and for halting the decline of Britain

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In the Guardian, do turn up  the trenchant and sweary encounter  between ace newspaper interviewer Decca Aitkenhead and Robert Peston, economics guru- cum- eccentric political interviewer, on  Brexit and the future of the nation. Peston is an acquired taste, a formerly buttoned -up guy who literally as we can see, has let his hair down since he went on TV late in life and longs to come across as spontaneously ordinary but can’t find quite the right notes. (that cringing-making …

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Previewing this weekend’s DUP conference #dup17

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Tomorrow’s DUP conference is a big moment for the DUP and one that they’ll want to steer away from the evangelical zeal (and language) of some previous conferences to look modern and trustworthy as the eyes of the world’s press fall on their demeanour as much as their message.

Domestic political turmoil renders the Brexit negotiations even more unpredictable. This time it’s not London’s fault

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Compared with some other key leaders, Theresa May’s position is  looking remarkably stable for a change  as she flies into Brussels today for what’s being billed in London as crucial meetings with EU leaders including Council president Donald  Tusk. The Westminster lobby is reporting that she’ll be taking soundings over whether a British offer of a bigger divorce bill – £40 billion is being mentioned off the record  – would be enough to persuade EU leaders to allow Brexit talks …

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Another leak against the Brits, but Theresa’s not for budging

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Another leak to RTE, another bout of Irish pressure, accompanied by Irish Times columnist Stephen Collins joining a chorus of “ contempt” for British tactics and urging his government to stand firm. The (British position that the) Border issue should be dealt with in phase two of the Brexit negotiations dealing with future trade rather than in phase one as the EU is insisting. This is an obvious attempt to use the Border as a bargaining tool in the negotiations …

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Brexit: So what will happen to the economy when the foreign workers go home?

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Over on Channel 4 there is a new darkly funny fly on the wall documentary series “British Workers Wanted“. It shows a recruitment company in England coping with life during Brexit. 98% of the company’s recruitment staff are foreign, but what do you do when after Brexit the foreign workers start to leave? The show follows the company’s efforts to recruit British workers to do the jobs that the foreign workers used to do, but with predictably dire results. This 1-minute …

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The postwar ID requirement between Northern Ireland and Great Britain

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Reading through some old Wikipedia articles pointed me to an interesting exchange in the House of Commons, back in 1948. Ulster Unionist MPs Conolly Gage and Major Samuel Gillmor Haughton rose during an adjournment debate to complain about the requirement for a permit or passport to be presented for travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Mr Gage opens by highlighting the inconvenience of this arrangement : As everyone knows, Ulster is as much a part of …

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