It had to happen eventually. Latest census information shows there are more Catholics in Northern Ireland than Protestants – for the first time.
What does this mean for what was supposed to be a permanent Protestant state in the north of the island of Ireland?
Here’s the discussion:
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Another ‘grace period’ in which the Northern Ireland Protocol of the UK-EU Brexit agreement is not fully implemented has come to an end and the UK’s Tory government has again failed to respect the deadline.
This means the full effect of the protocol is still not being felt. In the video clip below, Phil Moorhouse argues that the EU has chosen not to formally object because its leaders are hoping the Tories are now in their twilight days and will be removed from power in the UK after the next general election, following which they can have an adult conversation with whoever succeeds them:
It seems that events have already overtaken the clip, in fact. Here‘s the BBC:
The UK has told the EU it will continue delaying customs checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, despite legal action from Brussels over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The EU is considering its next steps.
The EU has launched a series of lawsuits over what it sees as the UK’s failure to comply with checks on the movement of farm produce from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
It has also started legal action over legislation that would allow the UK to alter the protocol, introduced by Liz Truss when she was foreign secretary.
Phil’s opinion that the UK will never agree to end the ‘grace periods’ seems correct. He’s mistaken in believing the EU won’t launch legal action.
So now what?
It’s hard to tell because the EU’s response will be quiet during the period of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II.
Considering the aims of the European Research Group (ERG) that appears to be controlling UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, it seems clear that a confrontation is coming that the UK will lose badly. Perhaps it’s better to wait for a more reasonable UK government.
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The United Nations has condemned the UK’s plan to give a blanket amnesty to British soldiers who carried out atrocities in Northern Ireland during the troubles. pic.twitter.com/HGzfigbSqI
“The BBC is facing increasing pressure to cover Westminster through a more critical lens as a result of Peter Stefanovic’s viral video highlighting Boris Johnson’s many misleading claims. The lawyer’s video has now been viewed more than 30 million times” https://t.co/RyEnJdqsGD
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Kate Hoey: either she did not understand what Brexit would mean to Northern Ireland or she didn’tt care. But the people her influence has harmed will not forget.
This has been a long time coming – and not just to Kate Hoey.
The Brexiteer and former Labour MP has been trying to defend her support for the UK leaving the European Union in the flame-light of the burning vehicles in Northern Ireland.
Her reception has been – well, see for yourself. Here’s her tweeted assertion:
The Protocol has destabilised Northern Ireland. Placing a border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland without the consent of the pro Union community has been the trigger for this unacceptable violence. @davidfrost@BorisJohnsonhttps://t.co/xJBtcIqVVG
Kate Hoey, who backed Brexit. had said It wouldn't cause problems in Ireland! Didn't back Corbyn deal which would have meant no borders ! She distances herself now from the war she help reignite #Brexithttps://t.co/h4QBEkFuS4
Yes indeed – Hoey stated in a Telegraph article that Northern Ireland had much to gain from Brexit, despite the province having voted against leaving the EU (because people there knew it would jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process):
As Kate Hoey watches the scenes of rioting in Northern Ireland it's time to remind her of this piece she penned for the Telegraph in May 2016. Not for the first time has it been proved she speaks utter drivel when it comes to her beloved Brexit. https://t.co/Xf2QEinJYT
Now people have simply connected her words then with her words now, and found that they are not persuasive:
I don’t like it when politicians are described as “evil”.
But I’m struggling to think of another word for Kate Hoey who didn’t care one jot about the consent of N Ireland when they voted to remain in EU…now trying to justify the violence she was warned her actions would cause. https://t.co/fZeFhJNnaE
But Hoey should not feel that she is the only one feeling the force of Northern Ireland’s (and indeed the rest of the UK’s)… ire:
When you see Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland, Thatcher, Fish, Irish Sea, Sinn Fein, Kate Hoey, Alex Jones, George Galloway, Troubles and Project Fear are all trending on here at once. You know things ain't going to well. pic.twitter.com/uCmeQ5Ef8C
… when we seek compensation for what has happened.
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It seems Rishi Sunak is upset that the Scottish Parliament is more concerned with saving people’s lives than getting the economy back up and running for the benefit of a cadre of lazy billionaires, and has threatened to withdraw funding for the “furlough” scheme that pays for workers to stay at home if Holyrood extends the lockdown longer than Westminster.
The UK-wide furlough scheme has been extended until October, but when Scottish ministers called for clarity about the future, they received a discouraging response:
Scottish economy ministers Kate Forbes and Fiona Hyslop … appealed to the Treausry for assurances that workers will continue to access support even if Scottish firms are not reopened at the same time as English ones.
In a letter to the Chancellor, they wrote: “We understand that the support will need to be scaled back over time, but it is imperative that is done in a carefully considered way, and reflects the economic priorities of each of the four nations and the different sectors of our economies.
“The ability to stagger the closure of the scheme may be beneficial in considering how we safely exit the restrictions currently in place.”
But [a] Downing Street source said that furlough payments are now likely to be distributed by the Treasury on a “sector-by-sector” rather than geographical basis.
The Conservative government has made it clear that it intends to lift the lockdown as soon as it considers this to be possible – but has given no reassurances at all that it will carry out any tests to prove that it is safe to do so.
Indeed, the plan to force schools to reopen at the beginning of June has become a raging controversy, with fears that teachers, parents and friends could fall victim to Covid-19, and children themselves (who seem likely to suffer only light symptoms of that disease) may succumb to a follow-on infection that bears similarities to Kawasaki disease.
Conservatives have shown no concern about these issues at all.
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Remember the Garden Bridge: Boris Johnson spaffed nearly £60 million on this while he was Mayor of London – and not a single minute’s work was spent trying to build it. The NI-Scotland bridge is just his latest pie-in-the-sky project.This is arrogant lunacy and it will cost a fortune.
I’m not even talking about the price of building a bridge from Northern Ireland to Scotland; the consultants will bleed the public purse brutally before it can ever get that far.
In fact, we already know it can’t be done – at least, not for any acceptable price.
But then, Mr Johnson’s plans aren’t about cost-effectiveness. They’re about keeping public funds away from those members of the public who need them.
And, judging from Twitter, we all know it:
So now Boris wants to build a garden bridge all the way to Belfast
If you think HS2 has problems, multiply by 10 and divide the benefits by 100
Stormont: The Tories allocated an extra £400 million to NI last September – but will they honour their promise to stump up the £290 million from Theresa May’s ‘confidence and supply’ agreement with the DUP?
Is this a good enough reason to quit the UK?
It will, at the very least, be something to talk about after the devolved government of Northern Ireland returns to duty this weekend.
Sajid Javid – and Boris Johnson – may have reason to regret promising the Earth in September and leaving themselves with nothing to offer after the December election.
Or will they say the Northern Irish should be glad they haven’t reneged on their September promises?
And £290 million remains unspent out of the ‘bribe’ that Theresa May promised Northern Ireland in her ‘confidence and supply’ agreement that launched us into two and a half years of dither and delay on Brexit.
Will Javid and Johnson honour that agreement, or will they claw that cash back?
Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, Sajid Javid, has not yet earmarked any “new” money for Northern Ireland at the beginning of the UK’s budget process to prepare for its first post-Brexit budget on March 11th.
The chancellor has claimed that his budget will “start a new chapter” for the UK economy and enable it to seize “the opportunities that come from getting Brexit done”.
“Since 2015 we have cut taxes for 760,000 people in Northern Ireland. Next year we will increase the Executive’s budget by £400 million [€471 million] and by 2020 we will save the average car driver £1,000 by freezing fuel duty,” Mr Javid stated.
However, the £400 million increase that the chancellor has promised is on the way to Northern Ireland next year is money that he had already previously allocated to the North back in September 2019.
A spokesman for the UK Treasury confirmed that the £400 million Mr Javid has referenced was “not new money”.
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Devolution: The Tories will be quick to celebrate the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland. Has it not occurred to any of them that the Northern Irish hate Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal and now want to quit the UK altogether?
At long last – three years since the ‘Cash for Ash’ scandal that ended the last Northern Ireland power-sharing deal, it seems MLAs are returning to Stormont.
The new power-sharing deal means devolved government in Northern Ireland will resume.
According to Boris Johnson:
This is a great step forwards for the people of Northern Ireland and for restoring public confidence in stable devolved Government and delivering much needed reforms to public services.
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How interesting – last week we were told Boris Johnson’s government was working hard to get the devolved government in Northern Ireland working again, to bribe the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) into supporting his Brexit deal.
The idea was that, as the DUP is firmly opposed to the legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland – which will happen by law after the Westminster government supported it and could only be stopped if the Stormont assembly voted to do so, then the Stormont assembly must be restored.
It seems clear that attempts were made to facilitate this, but it was impossible for MLAs to agree on the election of a speaker so the attempt failed.
Now it seems Mr Johnson has no way of getting the DUP to support his deal, other than by making concessions.
Or will Arlene Foster’s party have a miraculous conversion to his way of thinking?
A last ditch attempt at the Stormont assembly to stop abortion law changes in Northern Ireland has failed, with the law set to change at midnight.
Unionist parties, who oppose the upcoming liberalisation, triggered the assembly’s recall with a petition.
But politicians were told the assembly could not do any business until a speaker was elected with cross-community backing.
That became impossible when the nationalist SDLP left the chamber.
As a result no nationalist representatives remained, meaning no new speaker could be elected and the sitting was suspended after less than an hour.
In July, MPs at Westminster passed legislation which requires the government to change abortion laws and extend same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland if devolution is not restored by 21 October.
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Oops: It looks like Boris Johnson has spoken without thinking again.
It seems Boris Johnson has caved in to the EU again over Northern Ireland’s border controls.
According to leaked information, the deal he has accepted with Leo Varadkar would take the whole of the UK out of the EU’s customs union – in name alone.
In fact, Northern Ireland would remain subject to the EU’s tariffs regime, in order to ensure that border checks do not become necessary.
Businesses in NI would then be able to negate the difference between UK and EU tariffs by offering a rebate on goods sold – if the UK tariff is lower than that in the EU. This is unlikely in a post-Brexit world.
Under the new plan, Northern Ireland would be in the same regulatory and agricultural zone, and subject to the same tariffs as the rest of the EU.
There would be a regulatory and agrifoods border in the Irish Sea and potentially some customs checks too, although Northern Ireland businesses would not lose out financially from the arrangement.
If the DUP supports this, it will be betraying the position it has held all along – that Northern Ireland must be treated in exactly the same way as the rest pf the UK.
So Mr Johnson has betrayed his Parliamentary partners.
It has yet to be seen whether he has kept the more extreme Brexiteers in his party – the ERG, for example – on-side.
And Labour will be set against the proposal, which paves the way for a bonfire of regulations and citizens’ rights, in line with the Tory plan to turn the UK into a tax haven on the edge of Europe, where the population is exploited for the gain of a tiny few.
Do you want to live in a tax haven for the rich that brutally exploits the poor?
If you want to be harmed by your government – more deeply than it has already – then carry on voting Tory.
If you don’t, then Labour’s the party for you. Do as you will.
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