The Conservative party says this election will determine whether or not we ‘get Brexit done’. According to Boris Johnson, against the odds, he negotiated a good deal with the EU that should be powered through Parliament without delay. To achieve this, he’s asking voters to give him a healthy majority in the House of Commons. […]
The DUP’s founder, Ian Paisley, had a reputation as the ‘Grand Old Duke of York’ of Northern Ireland politics. According to opponents, he would march his followers up to the top of the hill and to the brink of confrontation before losing his nerve and marching them down again. This imagery came to mind again […]
The DUP again finds itself in the uncomfortable position of opposing a Brexit deal agreed by the Conservative government, with which it is supposed to be allied. Previously, it rejected Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement alongside MPs in the European Research Group (ERG) of Tory eurosceptics. Now, many high-profile Conservative Brexiteers have expressed support for the […]
Boris Johnson accuses his opponents in the House of Commons of drafting a ‘Surrender Bill’, but the terms he offered the EU this afternoon resemble a partial surrender over the Irish backstop. The Prime Minister was still huffing and puffing about removing the backstop yesterday, but the plans published this afternoon amount to half a […]
In Dublin, there is rising panic that Boris Johnson means what he says about the Irish backstop. The Republic’s prime minister, Leo Varadkar, blustered that ‘no deal’ may lead to a ‘united Ireland’, but he knows that his government’s aggressive position on Brexit helped to bring Boris Johnson to power and could, ultimately, destroy his […]
The Orange Order’s annual Twelfth of July parades take place today in towns and villages across Northern Ireland. For many unionists, this commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne is an important tradition and a major celebration. But the event is also controversial, because some nationalists see it as an expression of triumphalism and religious […]
The European Parliamentary election in Northern Ireland habitually highlights the ugliest aspects of the province’s divided politics. For decades, an intolerant unionist demagogue, Ian Paisley, topped the poll. Now, the best performing candidate is Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson, a convicted bomber, who plotted to murder and maim alongside some of the IRA’s most fanatical killers. […]
The new defence secretary, Penny Mordaunt, has recently announced proposed new laws that could protect members of the armed forces from being pursued for alleged historical offences committed on duty abroad. This ‘statutory presumption’ against prosecution will not apply to incidents that took place in Northern Ireland, where two former soldiers are already awaiting trial […]
In Northern Ireland, people are still numb with shock after a young journalist, Lyra McKee, was shot dead by republican paramilitaries in Londonderry last Thursday. It is wrong to say that this incident was a throwback to the worst days of the Troubles. The province endured decades of violence of varying ferocity, but this was […]
Since at least late 2017, the UK has been locked in fraught negotiations with the EU about Northern Ireland. According to Brussels and Dublin, the government must accept an insurance policy — or backstop — in order to prevent the “hard border” that would be erected in the absence of an agreement. Now, the Irish […]
The Prime Minister claims she has secured significant concessions from the EU on the Northern Ireland backstop, that could allow MPs to support an “improved Brexit deal” in tonight’s House of Commons vote. These “legally-binding” changes are set out in three documents — an instrument expanding on the text of the original draft withdrawal agreement, a joint statement supplementing […]
If it’s tricky to keep up with the detail of endless debates over Brexit, shifting alliances in the House of Commons make the task even more difficult. Last night, a new contour emerged in the parliamentary landscape, as the DUP supported the Prime Minister, while its Conservative Brexiteer allies helped inflict another serious defeat on […]
As March 29 approaches with no sign of an achievable Brexit deal, the prospects of a harder border in Ireland are increasing. Yesterday, the European Commission’s chief spokesman, Margaritis Schinas, told journalists at his daily media briefing that, in the absence of a withdrawal agreement, it is “pretty obvious you will have a hard border”. […]
Yesterday, the Government published proposals intended to reassure unionists and Brexiteers that Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement will not undermine Northern Ireland’s place in the UK. If a solution to the Irish border problem cannot be found during the implementation period, they commit the Government to a “mandatory process of consultation” with the Stormont Assembly, before […]
If you want the UK to remain tied closely to the European Union, or you back Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, you’re probably frustrated that opposition to the Northern Ireland backstop looks likely to result in “no deal” and could even mean a change of prime minister. If you support a harder Brexit, you might worry […]
In this morning’s Belfast News Letter, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson set out the DUP’s terms for supporting Theresa May’s Brexit withdrawal deal. “We need to see an end to the backstop,” the Lagan Valley MP demanded, ahead of his party’s annual conference this weekend, “it is now clear the EU are beginning to accept that there […]
After months of tense negotiations, the agreement of the draft text of a Brexit withdrawal agreement should be cause for champagne corks popping and church bells pealing. However, Theresa May’s leadership of the talks process has been so halting, and the Government’s adherence to its ‘red lines’ so unconvincing, that the news was greeted mainly […]
Sir Roger Scruton has written that the “seeming open-mindedness” of modern liberalism “is just as determined to silence the heretic as any established religion”. “There may be no knowing in advance how the new heresies could be committed, or what exactly they are,” he wrote in an article in The Times, “since the ethic of non-discrimination […]
By January, Northern Ireland will almost certainly have been without a devolved government for two years, compounding the sense of crisis and frustration around the Irish border and Brexit. While the Conservative government has so far refused to introduce direct-rule, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Karen Bradley, drafted a Northern Ireland (Executive Formation […]
On the day that Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley delivered an important statement to the House of Commons designed to unlock the impasse over power-sharing at Stormont, Parliament’s internal magazine, The House, published a startling interview with the Secretary of State. Mrs Bradley made the staggering confession that, when she started her current job, “I […]
