Withdrawal Agreement

Will the promise of light touch, low regulation for the border in the Irish Sea at our ports be fulfilled?

Brian Walker on May 21, 2020, 8:35 am

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Larne Harbour If we have to have a border in the Irish Sea it would be great to keep it cheap and simple. That’s the powerful appeal of the British “Attitude to the Northern Ireland Protocol” available here in full. It contrasts with all the complex thicket of process in the EU version supported by a chorus of Europhiles. After all the UK government should know; they will implement it not the EU. It isn’t at all clear how the …

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

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

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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 …

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

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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 …

For Mrs May, third time lucky, with the support of the DUP next week – or a desperate last throw

Brian Walker on March 14, 2019, 1:05 am

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What a topsy turvy world is conjured up by the spectre of No Deal. Despite yesterday’s vote to abandon it and with the extension of Article 50 to come, the nail hasn’t been yet driven through its heart. What happens when the usual parameters of behaviour are abandoned, the perverse effect, is every much in evidence. In an openly divided cabinet, a chancellor who defies his prime minister by warning against No Deal and then votes for it. A …

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 …

Northern Ireland’s business community has united as never before to make sure it is heard and the consequences of crashing out of the EU next March are understood.

Soapbox on November 29, 2018, 12:12 pm

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Stephen Kelly is the Chief Executive of Manufacturing NI, he writes for Slugger about why the Withdrawal Agreement from the European Union should be supported. A community has found it voice. Reluctant, yet determined, Northern Ireland’s business community has united as never before, to make sure is heard, and that the consequences of crashing out of the EU next March are understood. Some may have been frustrated that Northern Ireland’s businesses and their representatives have been too quiet, but we …

“This is the “Canada-plus” option the EU at one point said it would never agree to…”

Pete Baker on November 27, 2018, 2:58 pm

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The Irish Times today carries the view of, the always worth reading, FT columnist Wolfgang Münchau on the withdrawal agreement between the UK and EU. First he makes a quick point on the opposition on both sides of the House of Commons… When British cabinet ministers resigned hours after the publication of the withdrawal agreement between the UK and EU, they could not conceivably have read it, let alone digested its finer points. Many of the MPs who denounced the …