Ireland/NI Protocol

The DUP are struggling to find reasons of principle for continuing their Assembly boycott

Brian Walker on February 28, 2023, 6:07 pm | Readers 8039

Photo; The Irish Sea Many unionists are doing what unionists do, poring over a legal text. Not all of them may be clear in their own minds why they’re doing so. Looking for fresh evidence of betrayal or points that need improving? For one, Sam McBride has delivered a glass half empty exposure of Rishi Sunak’s bouncy oversell. The border in the Irish Sea may have been replaced by the green channel but it is alive and well in the …

Frost’s resignation dissolves fudging over the Protocol and faces Johnson with the stark choice. And Liz Truss the party favourite will make it.

Brian Walker on December 19, 2021, 12:53 pm | Readers 9780

The social libertarian reasons David Frost has given for quitting the government such as the “direction of travel” on Covid restrictions and increased taxes are hardly the whole story. For if he thought he looked like winning in the Protocol negotiations he would surely not have quit. His letter to Johnson smacks of the same disingenuousness as his Protocol reports – a hard line written in the language of sweet reasonableness. Frost knows very well he has set Johnson a …

“No need for the talks to drag on to the autumn”.. but still the British are busking it

Brian Walker on June 19, 2020, 7:01 pm | Readers 1650

To return to the game of chicken with the EU.. Michael Gove. The argument we’re making to the EU as well is, if you insist on significant new infrastructure and a significant new presence, what you will do is actually make the protocol less acceptable to the majority community in Northern Ireland and therefore you run the risk of the protocol being voted down in a future election,” Michael Gove told the House of Commons Northern Ireland affairs committee. EU …

Greater vision and laser-like focus on reality are needed if we are to emerge well out of the Covid and Brexit crises

Brian Walker on June 4, 2020, 11:06 am | Readers 1830

David Frost, UK, and Michel Barnier, EU, chief negotiators Imposing a unenforceable quarantine on visitors to the UK from other countries with lower death rates. Forcing MPs to vote in person to set an example for a return to work. Even in the midst of crisis – or especially? – irrationality plays a great part in politics as is does in human nature generally. Somewhere there was a germ of a point that got overtaken by time and circumstances. The …

Behind the alarmist noises, the UK and the EU have the basis of a deal. It will be criminal if they fail

Brian Walker on May 16, 2020, 10:41 am | Readers 3904

David Frost and Michel Barnier standing together ( just about) Lurking not far behind Covid is the self inflicted crisis over the next stage of Brexit. To many including me, the prospect of a border at the Irish Sea is as revolting as a physical border on the island of Ireland. It’s no consolation that there’s a disconnect between the political rhetoric and what’s actually happening on the ground. The government has privately conceded there will be post-Brexit checks on …

Boris Johnson’s perversity on the Brexit cliff edge reminds me of the Free State’s rejection of all things British

Brian Walker on April 30, 2020, 9:05 pm | Readers 4692

Warrenpoint Harbour The UK’s stubbornly negative approach to future relations within the EU reminds me of the newborn Free State’s attitude to Britain after the trauma of independence. They can’t wait to be rid of even the symbols as well as the substance of the former power even to the extent of trying to deny the facts of mutual interdependence particularly over the economy. Granted there are vital differences. No blood has been spilled over Brexit and… I was going …