It’s now a week and a half since the Government published the ‘Windsor Framework’; a deal that it claimed restored Northern Ireland’s ‘full and unfettered’ access to the UK internal market. The province’s biggest unionist party, the DUP, promised to apply ‘seven tests’ to this agreement. They would gauge, among other things, whether it removed […]
The comic Ed Byrne once memorably deconstructed Alanis Morrissette’s song Ironic. He noted that, while the lyric was supposed to provide a series of examples of irony, it actually just recounted unfortunate events, none of which was ironic at all. The only ironic thing about the song, he concluded, was that its writer didn’t know […]
Rishi Sunak believes he can restore order to the Conservative Party and hold together an exceptionally fractious coalition of Tory MPs. There is an issue, though, that his predecessors failed to resolve that could fatally destabilise his premiership almost immediately. Against a backdrop of economic crisis and the war in Ukraine, he may not think […]
Throughout the Northern Ireland Troubles, a large and sometimes overlooked majority of both unionists and nationalists remained firmly opposed to paramilitary violence. Even while some of the most emotive events of the 1970s and 1980s took place in Ulster, people always believed that peaceful routes were available to pursue their political objectives. At the end […]
Yesterday, the whole country waited expectantly to learn whether Boris Johnson would accept that his troubled premiership had finally come to an end. Now that he has decided to resign, no region is likely to be affected more profoundly than Northern Ireland. Right at the start of his time in office, in late 2019, the […]
Well, it has already got further than I and many other unionists probably feared it might. Last night, the bill to unilaterally amend the Northern Ireland Protocol passed its second reading in the House of Commons. It was by no means certain to get this far. At one point, Liz Truss seemed to be suggesting […]
Over the last week there has much excitement about the views of Remainer Tory MP Tobias Elwood and Tory leaver former MEP Daniel Hannan that it would have been better for the UK to have stayed in the Single European market. They have claimed that doing so would have helped deal with the cost of […]
In the aftermath of last week’s Stormont election, the Government has focused again on the Northern Ireland Protocol and its potential to derail the province’s devolved institutions. Sinn Fein is due to choose a First Minister on Friday, but the DUP insists it will not nominate a Deputy First Minister until the sea border is […]
On Saturday evening, 48 hours after the polls closed, counting at Northern Ireland’s Stormont assembly election was finally complete. The result was described by some commentators as a ‘seismic’ shock. But once the initial overstatement and hyperbole were cleared out the way, it was striking how little had actually changed. Sinn Fein topped the poll […]
At 6.30am on Monday morning, the Northern Ireland Protocol saga took a sinister new twist. In the predominantly unionist town of Newtownards, two masked and armed men hijacked a double-decker bus and set it alight, seemingly in protest against the Irish Sea border. The leaders of unionist political parties, including the DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson, […]
This year is the centenary of Northern Ireland, and the Union as we know it. As we mark this historic occasion, I know many will be reflecting on the past as well as looking to the century ahead. But building the brighter future we all wish to see requires us to be honest and upfront […]
Yesterday, Northern Ireland’s four explicitly unionist parties issued a ‘declaration’ affirming their opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol. This statement was timed to coincide with the anniversary of ‘Ulster Day’ in 1912. 109 years ago, on the 28th of September, almost half a million people in the province expressed their commitment to a ‘cherished position […]
You’ll probably need a strong stomach to wade through the Troubles oral history archive, one of the proposed innovations announced by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland yesterday afternoon to replace the basic notion of justice and accountability. ‘My skull fractured like an eggshell. The eye sockets in my skull disintegrated into my head, […]
It seems an obvious point, but increasing trading opportunities for UK companies was a key pillar of the case for Brexit. And, behind all of the free trade agreements that the UK strikes, including that with the EU, the Government should help businesses to expand however it can. In that context, the recent news that […]
Boris Johnson won the contest to succeed Theresa May in part through his unrelenting attacks on her proposals for Northern Ireland. No self-respecting Prime Minister, he said, could possibly tolerate introducing an internal border between the Province and the rest of the United Kingdom. Upon getting into office, however, the Prime Minister acquiesced to exactly […]
Four and a half years after the Brexit referendum, it’s almost impossible not to feel relief that Britain has finally left the EU with a free trade agreement. Some critics have reservations, particularly where fishing and the service industries are concerned, but many of the staunchest Brexiteers say it puts the UK in charge of […]
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