Category Archives: Northern Ireland

Why is the DUP returning to power-sharing in NI assembly if nothing has changed?

Return to Stormont? Chris Heaton-Harris (left), the Northern Ireland Secretary, seems to have done a deal with DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson.

The Democratic Unionist Party has apparently agreed to resume its power-sharing deal in the Northern Ireland Assembly, even though none of the objections to post-Brexit trade rules over which its members walked out seem to have been addressed.

The DUP quit the Stormont assembly nearly two years ago, in protest at the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol for post-Brexit trade that would put a border between the Province and the rest of the United Kingdom.

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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proposed a new deal, called the Windsor Framework, last year. This adopted a suggestion from the European Union that ‘Green’ and ‘Red’ lanes be set up at borders.

There would be a ‘Green Lane’ for goods going into NI, and they won’t be checked, while goods going through the province and into the Republic (or the other way, and into the UK) will be subject to customs procedures.

And the DUP didn’t like it – so Stormont remained closed for business.

Now, after talks with NI Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has announced that a deal has been reached.

But nothing seems to have changed!

Heaton-Harris has said full details of the deal won’t be available until all-party talks are finalised, and it contains “significant” changes.

However, according to the BBC:

“Not one word of the Northern Ireland Protocol has been altered, and that means Northern Ireland remains under the EU’s customs code, and that means Great Britain continues to be regarded, in law, as a foreign country when it comes to trade.”

He tells gathered reporters: “Under the protocol there are hundreds of EU laws that we do not make and cannot change.”

He points out that those laws which shape NI’s goods economy are “identical” to those that govern the goods economy of the Republic of Ireland.

He says it’s all a “tawdry climbdown by the DUP on their own tests which have not been met” and accuses the party of “accepting foreign law”.

This Writer suspects that the change of heart may be partly to do with one aspect of the ‘Windsor Framework’ deal that Sunak mentioned when he announced it last year.

He said the Northern Ireland Assembly would decide whether the ‘Windsor Framework’ should be supported, in 2024.

This means, I think, that if the DUP wishes to oppose it, there needs to be a functioning Assembly, and if that party continues to refuse to take up its seats there, stopping it from working, then government of Northern Ireland goes back to Westminster, which will support the new deal.

Either way, it seems the DUP is checkmated because the Assembly will probably back it.

So the reasoning may be that it is better to go back to Stormont, debate the deal there and see what can be negotiated than to let the Tory government in Westminster make the decision and be forced to live with it.

But I’m prepared to be wrong.

We’ll find out, when the details are published.


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NI elections: with Sinn Fein ascendant, what next for the DUP?

The results of the Northern Ireland local elections are in – and Sinn Fein has made clear gains.

After that party’s victory in the Stormont assembly elections last year, it gained 39 council seats to make itself the largest party in local government as well.

And turnout was up, from 52.7 per cent to 54.7 per cent. That suggests that people deliberately turned out to help Sinn Fein gain more seats.

What does this mean for the Democratic Unionist Party, the next-largest in both Stormont and the councils?

I’d say that, as Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neil has said, it means the public want the DUP to resume its power-sharing arrangement in Stormont – or they’ll punish that party again.


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People are lying about Jeremy Corbyn and Northern Ireland again. Let’s straighten the record

‘The face of honest politics’: I’m using this image, instead of one showing Jeremy Corbyn’s participation in the Northern Ireland peace process, to highlight his honesty against the dishonesty of those who deny his contribution.

I wonder if the liars have a timetable that they follow: “Time to repeat the lie that Jeremy Corbyn had nothing to do with the Northern Ireland peace process, then!” and suchlike.

Here’s some evidence in support:

This James Vaughan character reckons he’s a “historian of propaganda and UK-Israel relations” so I dare say we can work out why he’s trying to persuade people to believe a lie.

And it is a lie. I researched Mr Corbyn’s role in the Northern Ireland peace process a few years ago. He won an award for it, by the way.

You can read what I found here.

But – tell you what – shall I repeat the main points below, just to make it really easy for everybody?

Okay:

And what did happen?

Well, let’s start here:

It is true that Jeremy Corbyn, together with John McDonnell and possibly others, is known to have started talking with representatives of Sinn Fein – the democratically-elected political wing of the Northern Irish republican movement – and not the IRA, in 1983 – after Mr Adams became the first democratically-elected Sinn Fein MP in Westminster.

This was two years after then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher (later Baroness Thatcher) opened up negotiations of her own – although these really were with the IRA. At the time – and for years after, Mrs Thatcher and her Tory successors denied having any such contact with the paramilitary organisation, claiming, “We do not negotiate with terrorists.”

BBC investigative reporter Peter Taylor said when the information was released under the Thirty-Year Rule: “That was nonsense, that was going on all the time behind the scene.”

So we see that Mr Corbyn was involved in the peace process at least 15 years before the Good Friday Agreement was signed, in open talks with Sinn Fein that fostered goodwill while the Conservative government was holding secret negotiations with the IRA that came to nothing. Mr Corbyn has received a large amount of criticism for his actions, and Mrs Thatcher had none for hers. That’s the wrong way round.

Still, the fact of Mrs Thatcher’s negotiations shows that critics of Mr Corbyn now needed to find a way of discrediting his activities. References to photographs of him with Gerry Adams (for example, the shot at the top of this article) and Martin McGuinness (who was also democratically elected) don’t cut the mustard in this respect as they do not show him in discussions with terrorists.

For this reason, Mr Corbyn’s invitation for Gerry Adams to come to Westminster for talks, along with other members of Sinn Fein and Linda Quigley and Gerry MacLochlainn – who had been arrested and convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions and possession of explosives in 1980 – caused uproar as the meeting was scheduled to take place just two weeks after the IRA bombed the Conservative conference in Brighton in 1984. The two former prisoners had been invited to discuss prison conditions; the meeting was nothing to do with the bombing.

Mr Maclochlainn went on, along with Mr Corbyn, to become part of the campaign to free the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, innocent people who had been falsely convicted of carrying out IRA bomb attacks in 1974. As a result of their efforts – and those of many others – the convictions of the Four were quashed in 1989, and those of the Six were quashed in 1991.

Oh, and in 1994, as Sinn Fein’s representative in London, he was in the first delegation to meet with the British Labour Party front bench for discussions that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement. Apparently this is nothing to do with his connection with Mr Corbyn. I find that hard to believe.

Mr Corbyn himself described the release of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four as one of the high points of his career, back in 2013: “The release of the Birmingham Six in 1991 and the Guildford Four in 1989 was amazing. I had helped campaign for them because of a miscarriage of justice and I could paper the walls with abusive letters I got at the time.”

It seems that some have claimed that Mr MacLochlainn’s – and Ms Quigley’s – convictions are evidence that Mr Corbyn has met and supported members of the IRA. In fact, it is clear that they had nothing to do with the IRA at the time, with Mr MacLochlainn going on to a – law-abiding – career in politics. Mr Corbyn himself said in an interview with Robert Peston: “I have not spoken to the IRA… I’ve met former prisoners who told me they were not in the IRA.”

Similarly, it seems some have claimed that Mr Corbyn’s arrest for obstruction when he joined 15 demonstrators protesting against the “show trial” of IRA suspects including Brighton bomber Patrick Magee, who would be convicted of murdering five people, was a show of support for terrorists, terrorism and murder. But this was at a time when Mr Corbyn had been in dialogue with people involved in the Northern Irish question for several years and it is entirely possible that he was protesting against a deliberately provocative act that could have wrecked his efforts toward peace. You decide.

The same could – again – be said about Mr Corbyn’s appearance at a meeting of the Wolfe Tone Society, an Irish republican support group, in which eight IRA members and one civilian who were shot dead by the British Army in an operation to defend a police station known as the Loughgall ambush were commemorated. Mr Corbyn said he attended the event and took part in a minute of silence to “call for peace and a dialogue process”. He was trying to prevent the deaths from causing a rift that could ruin attempts to end the violence altogether.

It seems to me that we’re seeing bad faith misinterpretations of Mr Corbyn’s actions, made for political gain rather than in any attempt to reveal the facts.

And what about claims that Mr Corbyn was on the editorial board of a magazine called London Labour Briefing when it published material that seemed to praise, or make light of the Brighton bombing? Well, there is absolutely no evidence connecting him with the offending material. In May 2017, he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge: “I read the magazine. I wrote for the magazine. I was not a member of the editorial board. I didn’t agree with it. I don’t agree with that position.”

Mr Corbyn has been accused of hindering the peace process by opposing the Anglo-Irish Agreement between the UK and the Republic of Ireland, that was signed in 1985. This, again, appears to be based on a false interpretation of events.

The treaty gave the Irish government an advisory role in Northern Ireland’s government while confirming that there would be no change in the constitutional position of Northern Ireland unless a majority of its people agreed to join the Republic, and was intended to help end the “Troubles”. In this intention, it failed utterly.

One reason for its failure was the fact that unionist political parties were excluded from the pre-treaty negotiations. They also rejected the agreement because it gave the Republic a role in the governance of Northern Ireland. And republicans hated it because it gave formal recognition to Northern Ireland’s status as part of the UK. It did nothing to end the Troubles.

Mr Corbyn, speaking in Parliament at the time, made clear his own reasons for opposing the treaty: “We believe that the agreement strengthens rather than weakens the border between the six and the 26 counties.” He saw that as contrary to efforts for peace and it seems clear that he was correct. He continued his efforts to bring all involved parties to the negotiating table – including unionist and republican representatives who had been excluded from the Anglo-Irish Agreement talks.

In 1987, The Times tried to claim that Mr Corbyn gave money to an IRA bomber – and was forced to publish an apology in short order.

The Sun revived the claim in 2015 – and was swiftly put in its place.

Notice that Mr Corbyn’s first act, on hearing that an operative of the Provisional IRA might be in London, was to phone the police. That is not the act of a supporter of terrorism.

On August 11, 1988, the Irish Times ran an article praising Jeremy Corbyn as a “tireless campaigner for the Irish”. I don’t have a copy of the article but comments about it elsewhere suggest it referred to his work to clear the Guildford Four, and his call for the Bloody Sunday inquiry to be re-opened.

Turning now to the unionists who Mr Corbyn isn’t supposed to have met, let’s discuss David Ervine. He was a member of the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force), an armed loyalist group, and was arrested in 1974 while driving a car containing a significant quantity of explosives. Released from prison in 1980, he eventually became the leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP). As a socialist, he was invited to attend the Labour Party Conference in 1994, where he met Jeremy Corbyn. One week later, a ceasefire was called in Northern Ireland.

I know – coincidence, right?

Also vital in that 1994 ceasefire was Gary McMichael, a leader of the now-defunct Ulster Democratic Party. And both he and Mr Ervine were among four loyalist leaders, some or all of whom met Mr Corbyn on at least five occasions that year to discuss the allegedly wrongful imprisonment of Neil Latimer, a member of the “UDR Four” – Ulster Defence Regiment men who were convicted of killing Catholic Adrian Carroll in 1983. Nine years later, three of the four were released, their convictions overturned, but Mr Latimer remained in jail despite three appeals that many felt should have been upheld.

For those who claim that Mr Corbyn never condemned the IRA bombings: He is of course on the record as having condemned all violence during the “Troubles”. But in respect of IRA bombings, his feelings are also very clear because on November 29, 1994, he signed an Early Day Motion condemning the Birmingham bombing of 20 years previously.

It stated: “That this House notes that it is 20 years since the mass killings of 21 people in Birmingham as a result of terrorist violence; deplores that such an atrocity occurred and again extends its deepest sympathy to the relatives of those murdered and also to all those injured; and strongly hopes that the present cessation of violence by the paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland will be permanent and thus ensure that such an atrocity as took place in Birmingham as well as the killings in many other places both in Northern Ireland itself and Great Britain will never occur again.” There was also an amendment stating that MPs believed consideration should be given to building a civic memorial to those who died.

The ceasefire lasted until February 9, 1996, when the IRA committed the Docklands bombing that killed two people and injured 39 others. Sinn Fein said it had ended because of the refusal of the UK’s Conservative government to begin all-party negotiations on a lasting peace until the IRA decommissioned all its weapons.

Gerry Adams visited Westminster in November 1996 to meet Labour MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, to find a way to resurrect the ceasefire. Mr Adams had previously visited the United States at the request of then-President Bill Clinton, who appointed George J Mitchell as the United States Special Envoy to Northern Ireland in the same year. The governments of the UK and the Republic of Ireland agreed that Mitchell would chair an international commission on the disarmament of paramilitary groups and he subsequently recommended a series of rules – the Mitchell Principles – to which organisations had to agree if they were to take part in talks on the future of Northern Ireland.

Following the talks involving Mr Adams, Mr Corbyn and others, a new ceasefire began after the election of Tony Blair’s New Labour government, in July 1997. Negotiations for what eventually became the Good Friday Agreement began at the same time – but without Sinn Fein, which had not yet signed the Mitchell Principles. That party did so in September that year, and was admitted to the talks then.

Valerie Veness was Mr Corbyn’s assistant at this time. She has insisted that he played a small but vital part in the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement – holding discussions with republicans over the release of prisoners, one of that contingent’s demands if it was ever to sign a peace deal.

It seems clear that he was asked to do this by Mo Mowlam, the late Northern Ireland secretary who is credited with having sealed the GFA. According to Ms Veness, Ms Mowlam needed someone she could trust and whom the republicans also trusted, and that is why she chose Mr Corbyn.

This runs directly contrary to claims made by critics of Mr Corbyn and myself in the Twitter discussion (remember that?) – but in fact it also fits in perfectly with the facts.

Yes, Ms Mowlam criticised Mr Corbyn in 1996. Mr Corbyn had invited Gerry Adams to launch his autobiography in Westminster. She told the House of Commons she “unreservedly” condemned the invitation, which happened after the IRA’s Docklands bombing. It is entirely in keeping with the behaviour that we have seen from Mr Corbyn in previous years that he may have been seeking a way to keep lines of communication with Sinn Fein open with the offer. Ms Mowlam said: “Gerry Adams should be concentrating his efforts on encouraging the IRA to return to its ceasefire, rather than promoting his book,” and history shows that this is exactly what happened.

Is it really beyond the realms of possibility that, having seen the good relationship between Mr Corbyn and Mr Adams, Ms Mowlam would not have asked the former to approach the latter to discuss an issue of such delicacy as the release of prisoners? I don’t think so, and I certainly don’t think there’s enough evidence – in a Parliamentary statement made for diplomatic reasons – to support a claim that Ms Mowlam hated or despised Mr Corbyn.

So that is the evidence supporting claims that Mr Corbyn was involved in the Northern Ireland peace process. It seems conclusive.

Those involved in that process speak highly of him. Ian Paisley described him as courteous and polite; a “gentleman”.

And Gerry Adams said he would like to see Jeremy Corbyn become the UK prime minister, describing him as “outstanding”.

Mr Corbyn himself doesn’t talk about this part of his life because he is respecting confidences – things that were said and done in private. We can see clear evidence of this in the lack of any details in his speech on receiving the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award for his efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Yes – Jeremy Corbyn has received an international, and highly-prestigious, award for his efforts toward peace in Northern Ireland. But my Twitter feed is full of people claiming there’s no evidence he did anything. And I bet they’ll still ignore the facts after reading this.

It seems I was right about that last part.


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As the DUP digs in its heels, is Northern Ireland facing hard times?

Stormont: still locked as the DUP’s representatives dig in their heels over post-Brexit trade.

Rishi Sunak has managed to avoid humiliation in the vote on the ‘Stormont Brake’ aspect of his ‘Windsor Framework’ deal with the EU over trade in Northern Ireland. Instead the shame was hung on the Democratic Unionists and Tories in the European Research Group faction.

MPs voted by 515 to 29 to support the deal agreed by Rishi Sunak.

But the defeat means the DUP has vowed to continue its boycott of the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont – with possibly serious consequences for the province.

Spokespeople for the other Northern Irish political parties have begged the DUP to come back, according to the BBC:

Sinn Féin vice-president Michelle O’Neill said the DUP had to “stop their boycott” of Stormont so that executive ministers could take control of the budget.

Ministers had to be in post to make the case to the Treasury for extra funding for Northern Ireland, Ms O’Neill added.

“This budget is about to cause catastrophic damage to public services,” she said.

“So the DUP need to get around the table with the rest of us, make politics work.”

Alliance Party MP Stephen Farry said Northern Ireland was “bleeding at present”, with problems piling up and public services in real crisis.

He said his party had asked the UK government to consider providing a financial package and it appeared “the door is open to that”.

“This will require the parties in Northern Ireland to work together and to make a very persuasive case… to the Treasury,” he said.

“So it reinforces the impetus on the DUP to join the rest of us in ensuring we have proper governance here.”

Ulster Unionist assembly member Robbie Butler said the level of budget cuts “on that cliff edge at the moment actually is quite alarming”.

He urged the DUP to accept the “difficulties” with the Windsor Framework and “put the people of Northern Ireland first”.

Social Democratic and Labour Party leader Colum Eastwood said the DUP had to accept that it could not get everything it wanted from the new Brexit deal.

“We have a huge opportunity with this [deal] to trade into both [UK and EU] markets unencumbered,” said the Foyle MP.

“People in Britain would give their right arm to have that opportunity.”

But DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the ‘Windsor Framework’ would not deliver the long-term stability and prosperity that Northern Ireland needs.

Adding insult to injury, he adopted the rhetoric of Labour’s Keir Starmer, saying there was “an element of the sticking plaster” about Rishi Sunak’s new deal with the European Union, and it would not work.

He went on to say he is “not a quitter” and will continue trying to get the deal changed – a tall order, considering the joint UK-EU body that is overseeing Brexit will meet o ratify the legal changes brought about by the Windsor Framework – tomorrow (Friday, March 24, 2023).

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has met the five main Stormont parties at Hillsborough to discuss the new Brexit deal as well as Northern Ireland’s public finances, which he said were not in a good state.

He said he would have to set Northern Ireland’s budget for the coming year within the next few weeks if the executive was not up and running soon – and there would be some “tough decisions” if that happened.

It seems a very thinly-veiled threat, not just to the DUP but to all of the Northern Irish politicians: “get back to normal or suffer”.

But nobody in NI will be in any doubt about where responsibility will lie if the Tories in Westminster penalise them with Budget restrictions, and there may be knock-on consequences at the ballot box.

Is the DUP really willing to court electoral wipeout for the sake of what many see as not just a lost cause, but also a pointless one?


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As the ERG prepares to vote against Rishi Sunak’s Northern Ireland deal, its hypocrisy is exposed

Jacob Rees-Mogg: try not to throw up on your screen – it’s only a satirical comment on his rabid nationalism.

This is embarrassing for Jacob Rees-Mogg and all his European Research Group (ERG) colleagues who are about to vote against Rishi Sunak’s ‘Windsor Framework’.

It’s just an improved update of the Northern Ireland Protocol that they all supported to the hilt when Boris Johnson brought it, “oven-ready”, to Parliament.

Have a gander at this video clip in which Peter Stefanovic exposes the hypocrisy:

The ERG was set to vote with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party against the ‘Stormont Brake’ aspect of the ‘Windsor Framework’ today.

Doesn’t it seem clear that this decision is a political move – probably intended to destabilise Rishi Sunak in preparation for a possible return by Boris Johnson?


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Eurosceptic Tories withdraw support for NI deal. Will Rishi Sunak have to rely on Labour?

Mark Francois: he reckons the ‘Stormont Brake’ is “practically useless”.

This could be hugely embarrassing for Rishi Sunak.

After triumphantly trumpeting his ‘Windsor Framework’ for trade between Northern Ireland, the European Union and Great Britain, and claiming that it should win huge support from MPs, a hugely-influential group of his own party has turned against it.

The European Research Group (ERG) has said the so-called ‘Stormont Brake’, on which Commons MPs are due to vote tomorrow (March 22), is “practically useless”.

This mechanism is intended to give Northern Ireland greater influence on how EU laws are applied there.

ERG chairman Mark Francois has said the group has not decided whether to vote against it, but is leaving the decision to individual members.

But the criticism follows an announcement by Northern Irish MPs from the Democratic Unionist Party that they will not support it.

It puts Rishi Sunak in the excruciating position of potentially having to rely on support for his deal from Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, despite having a Parliamentary majority of around 80 MPs.

If I recall correctly, Sunak has regularly scorned such offers of support for individual policies.

What will it say about his leadership if he can only win the vote with support he didn’t want to have?


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Democratic Unionists will vote against Rishi Sunak’s new Northern Ireland deal. Why?

No entry: are the Democratic Unionists opoposing Rishi Sunak’s new Northern Ireland deal because they don’t want to return to the Stormont Assembly as only the second-largest party?

Do we believe the Democratic Unionists when they say they won’t support Rishi Sunak’s ‘Windsor Framework’ trade deal for Northern Ireland and the European Union because they have “ongoing concerns”?

Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the party would continue to assess the deal, but that “we don’t believe that this represents the significant progress that we need to see in order to have the institutions restored at this point”:

“There remain for us concerns, for example, and the Stormont Brake deals with the application of EU law in Northern Ireland, but it doesn’t address how are we dealing with change to UK law, which could impact on NI’s ability to trade within the United Kingdom itself.”

He said he wanted to ensure “what the prime minister is claiming is translated into law”.

“Our seven tests have not yet been met. Sufficient progress has not yet been made. I am determined to continue engaging with the government and to get this right,” he added.

Some have doubts…

… and I am among them. The comment triggered an interesting (if short) discussion:

What do you think?


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The DUP may have solved its ‘Windsor Framework’ dilemma – by passing the buck

The Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland found itself facing a thorny problem after Rishi Sunak announced his new ‘Windsor Framework’ deal for trade between Northern Ireland, Great Britain and the European Union.

That party had been using the lack of a hard-Brexit-supporting agreement on trade as an excuse not to take its seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, after elections that made Sinn Fein the largest party group there.

But Sunak’s deal has been welcomed almost universally, leaving the DUP with very little wiggle-room.

It left party leaders scrabbling for time in which to find a face-saving way forward.

Now it seems they have found it: pass the buck onto a specially-created committee, act according to its recommendations and – if anything goes wrong – use it as a scapegoat.

Here’s Maximilien Robespierre with the details:


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Boris Johnson comments on Rishi Sunak’s Northern Ireland deal

We were told Boris Johnsons would criticise parts of Rishi Sunak’s ‘Windsor Framework’ for Northern Ireland but would not oppose it outright.

We were told he had significant concerns and stood by his warning that the Government should keep the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill in place, and get rid of all legislation covering the movement of goods across EU borders.

And what did he say?

Here he is, speaking at a Global Soft Power summit:


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Boris Johnson is about to talk about Rishi Sunak’s NI deal – but who cares?

Bojob the Brexit Clown: Boris Johnson has nothing worthwhile or interesting to say about Rishi Sunak’s new framework for trade in Northern Ireland. He won’t even be amusing.

Some news outlets reckon Boris Johnson will break his silence on Rishi Sunak’s ‘Windsor Framework’ for Northern Ireland – but nobody seems to know what he’ll say.

And does it really matter?

Isn’t he yesterday’s man – flinging a dead cat around?

Some say he’ll criticise parts of the deal but will not oppose it outright; others say he has significant concerns and stands by his warning that the Government should keep the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill in place, and get rid of all legislation covering the movement of goods across EU borders.

I say he’ll generate only as much interest in his opinions as his client media can drum up – and it’s better for all of us if we don’t take any notice.

Source: Boris Johnson to finally break silence tomorrow to tear apart Sunak’s Brexit deal


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