So what Tory crazy thing will Sunak undo next? He’s done Trussonomics and NI Brexit. How about leaving the customs union or universal credit?
Only people who don't understand the EU Customs Union talk about it in these terms.
No Brexiteer joins the EU CU. It would be bonkers on sticks.
Well what crazy Tory policy do you want Sunak to undo next?
The Great Reform Act. Went too far and the rot started to set in.
It did ban women from voting though. That would do wonders for Tory prospects.
ISTR liberal opposition to female suffrage was that they didn't want to give the Tories a permanent majority.
That was at the time of the Suffragettes ISTR. That women have gradually drifted to the left of men from starting well to the right over many decades is a little mysterious. There are plenty of theories. None wholly convincing to me. It's a little known fact that a number of women had the vote prior to 1832. There was no hard and fast bar. An unmarried eldest daughter (assuming no sons natch), whose father had died, owning the requisite property qualifications, was perfectly entitled to vote. Until they married of course. It's a major plot point in Gentleman Jack. It's why she's a convinced Tory. (It's a far more interesting and nuanced book than the execrable TV show).
The most convincing explanation I’ve read is that women are less gung ho about radical change and risk taking. 100 years ago that was conservatism. Now it’s generally the right wing that takes the biggest risks - over climate change, economic security, constitutional changes like Brexit and so on, while the centre left (albeit not the far left) is more cautious.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Seems to be overwhelming support for this deal. Who isn’t supporting it. DUP I presume?
They haven't said officially. Paisley Jnr isn't. Only TUV and Dorries openly against. Lib Dems non committal. Quite a potential alliance there!
In all fairness, the LDs are going to read the agreement before deciding whether they like it or not. Some have decided they like it without going through the detail which is usually where the Devil lurks.
The DUP are a bunch of prize knobends. What purpose do they serve beyond perennially agitating for endless dispute and disruption? Let the Alliance self-designate as Unionist for constitution convenience and Michelle O'Neill can lead NI as FM without the moronic Orange Brigade. Naomi Long as DFM.
No, the UUP could do that if they back the Deal, not the Alliance
If the DUP refuse to take part in governing their own province, nominate the next biggest party. Find a way! Change the law if necessary.
So abolish the Good Friday Agreement. 🤔
From what I've heard of the deal, I like it. It seems sensible. It seems like what I was saying we should do for years but people kept saying was an impossible unicorn.
But as far as the Good Friday Agreement goes, it isn't up to you and me who runs the province, its upto the two elected parties representing the cross community. Either a deal is reached satisfying them, or there's no deal as far as Stormont is concerned. Unless you repeal and abolish the Good Friday Agreement.
I don't think the Good Friday Agreement refers to "the two elected parties representing the cross community".
The reference is to "unionist and nationalist designations". It doesn't mention the DUP or largest party. I think there is scope for sidelining the DUP.
That's what all these suggestions about the Alliance Party redesignating as Unionist are all about.
Alliance can designate as they please, they have 17 MLAs, the DUP have 25, the UUP 9 and TUV 1.
So even if the Alliance change designation, then that leaves them well short of 40% of the designated Unionists.
The point is to remove the DUP veto, not the veto of a united unionist community.
The point is to come up with bizarre ways to circumvent the Good Friday Agreement and try to reduce the 40% of the community requirement to be filled just the UUP from Unionists which only have a quarter of them.
The GFA says 40% of the unionist community, the unionist community gave the DUP over 70% of unionist MLAs to the DUP. That's a veto they democratically chose to give, don't like the result, people need to vote differently next time.
That's what all these suggestions about the Alliance Party redesignating as Unionist are all about.
Is that actually even slightly likely, or is it more like the suggestions that Sinn Fein might have taken their Westminster seats to vote in some Brexit vote or other -- theoretically possible but in practice a pigs-flying event ?
I don't know to be honest. But it seems a lot more likely than Sinn Fein taking Westminster seats. It isn't difficult to make a case that Alliance designating as Unionists is an administrative trick that doesn't fundamentally undermine their message of straddling and aiming to draw votes from, both communities. Sinn Fein would have to swear allegiance to the Crown.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
1) 1700 pages of EU law disapplied, with most trade rules coming from the UK legal side (including food safety), so ECJ presence seems pretty limited
2) UK VAT and excise rates and calculations apply, not Irish or EU ones
3) Free GB-NI trade for medicines, medical products, agriculture, construction goods, steel. UK regulation, not EU, on food, jewellery, clothes and medicines applies
4) Data sharing based on existing data collection, so no additional bureaucratic burden for small businesses
5) Stormont break only applies to NEW EU laws - but can be used just by a minority at Stormont AND challenges to it will not be decided by ECJ, but an independent body.
6) Stormont break requires the block by Stormont AND a UK government veto
7) New legal commitment on both UK and EU to protect UK internal market
8) GB-NI trade will be based on UK commercial regulation, not international customs.
Overall I would say this is more like 3-0 for the UK position than 3-1. But both sides win from the deal.
It's just as advertised and, arguably, even better - a fundamental and radical rewrite of the whole NI protocol.
Also, I note that it effectively introduces a new digital border between NI and Eire to monitor north-south movement to compensate, which is a massive concession and something I'd jump on if I were the DUP.
It also sets the precedent of digital borders between the UK and EU, which could be used to reduce trade barriers elsewhere in future. AND the UK can still sign trade deals elsewhere and filter immigration.
Rishi has played a blinder.
Short of agreeing a bit of choreography where the whole EU Commission came into Whitehall and went down on both knees in front of the British government, crying and begging for mercy, whilst the national anthem was played on loudspeaker and a list of famous British military victories read aloud to them accompanied by the Life Guards shouting "Huzzah!" I don't see how how he could have done any better.
True, but the really sad thing is that we didn’t need to elect a tactical genius to achieve all this, but simply to stop electing childish tw*ts who only saw the EU as a straw person to be insulted whenever it suited for personal or political advantage.
The EU were being childish tw*ts as well.
Precisely this sort of deal was being proposed by several of us years ago and it was poo-poohed and lampooned by UTOA Remainers on here as cakeism and fantasy.
They're not laughing now.
FPT - we are, mind. This is just one step back towards the single market. Tick tock.
Rishi does it better. Thanks his predecessors for their role in achieving this deal. Much hilarity.
Whether or not Sunak was being serious, he's right. The EU did not want the protocol unilaterally taken apart, and it is Truss's bill, continued by Boris, that has got them to compromise. If it had not, the dropping of the bill wouldn't be in the agreement.
It is good that a solution has been found, and good that it has been won by compromise and diplomacy not conflict.
That's what all these suggestions about the Alliance Party redesignating as Unionist are all about.
Is that actually even slightly likely, or is it more like the suggestions that Sinn Fein might have taken their Westminster seats to vote in some Brexit vote or other -- theoretically possible but in practice a pigs-flying event ?
Seems to be overwhelming support for this deal. Who isn’t supporting it. DUP I presume?
They haven't said officially. Paisley Jnr isn't. Only TUV and Dorries openly against. Lib Dems non committal. Quite a potential alliance there!
In all fairness, the LDs are going to read the agreement before deciding whether they like it or not. Some have decided they like it without going through the detail which is usually where the Devil lurks.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
Take it easy and get well soon! PB is here for you.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No we're nowhere near what May proposed. She proposed a no way out backstop for the whole of the UK. We'd still be there if that had been implemented as the inertia factor on the EU side would be huge and the inertia factor for Brexit 2 would be even bigger for the UK to pull out of the EU deal.
I don’t agree.
It's your prerogative to disagree with reality if you want, but it doesn't make for a useful discussion.
Mays deal envisaged a new and subsequent arrangement in 2020. Specific arrangements on Northern Ireland were supposed to be agreed with the EU and the UK was free to take specific proposals to a Joint Committee.
As I said in my original post, while the UK did not retain a unilateral right to just break off this agreement, it is stretching things beyond credibly to think the UK signed up to a for-ever customs union.
From a pure negotiating perspective, I can see why some want to claim that it was better to get to where we are today via the kind of hard break Boris “negotiated”, but I’m afraid that the vassalage idea around May’s deal was totally overblown, and Boris’s route cost the economy many many billions.
It wasn't overblown, it would have been the legal reality in the May deal. The UK would be stuck in the backstop with no unilateral mechanism to exit other than abrogating the treaty. Even the TCA has a 12 month divorce proceeding, the May WA didn't even have that. It was legitimately permanent purgatory for the UK stuck in the single market and customs union with no seat at the EU table and no legal mechanism to exit without the EU agreeing. It was a disaster and I said at the time it was a disaster.
What you call purgatory, I call insurance. Abrogating the treaty would have been the last recourse, but the intention was actually to make a new agreement sans the customs union.
Basically the argument rests on whether the “backstop” arrangements were in the interests of the EU against potential negotiated alternatives down the line. Those arguing the “purgatory” position were either taking the position that they were, or that the EU did not seek to act in its own interests where those interests might also coincide with the UK’s and potential to demonstrate “success” of Brexit. The “insurance” advocates basically disagree with this, argue that the backstop was an unstable position in neither party’s interests and that reality would drive its eventual replacement.
I think I agree, but I’d add that the purgatorial argument just happens to tie in with what was good for Boris’s career.
Purgatorialists were played. AND it cost the economy billions.
Yes. And you (I think) made the valid point above that if May's agreement was legally impossible to exit then so was Johnson's. Given that (having been trapped in it) Johnson's Govt proposed unilateral action through UK legislation to exit it then logically so could the same have been done under May's agreement. I think (subject to contradiction) that the supposed legal justification for the unilateral action within the NI Protocol bill was also available within the May agreement. Basically if the NI Protocol allowed provisions for suspension, then so did the May agreement.
Geoffrey Cox argued that we couldn't unilaterally exit the backstop. But then i suspect he would have taken the same view over the NI Protocol.
False comparison.
May's deal left us unable to get out, while still being in the EU's arrangements, with no unilateral exits.
Boris's deal already had us out of the EU's arrangements, and had multiple unilateral exits.
Yes, it is the accident of Boris's deal, the succession shenanigans making further leadership changes after Sunak very difficult, and leading to a solidly administrative PM that the EU have some degree of trust in that have allowed us a deal that gets us much of what May was trying to achieve in NI whilst being out/out.
Every single bit of the last 4 years of bonkers Tory politics was absolutely essential to ending up here. The opportunity has been taken, but it wasn't some master plan.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
I wonder if Boris is a bit unsure what to do - ie is he thinking:
"Is the level of support for this such that if I oppose it, it will look as if I am being so unreasonable that the end result will be a loss of support for me?"
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
My wife and I had it in August despite 5 vaccine injections and it was very unpleasant
I would suggest you are kind to yourself and take plenty of rest, drink lots of warm liquids and keep warm
Fantastic news. Hopefully Braverman will now do one.
It seems Sunak anticipates greater cooperation with Macron and the EU over the boat issue as a result of the new friendlier relationship
Confirmation of membership of ECHR seems a sensible part of this rapprochement
He seems to learn fast.
Sunak and Hunt are clearly aware that resolution of the NIP is essential and no doubt sees an opportunity to grow closer to the EU which I expect is broadly welcomed by most
Not "closer" to the EU. But a more pragmatic, workable relationship - now it is shorn of the "punishment beating" mentality in Brussels.
Knowing nothing about the details -- oddly enough, our local news stations haven't been giving the agreement much coverage -- I'll just say that I hope it works out well for all of you.
And that the agreement makes it easier for you to work with nations in the EU to help Ukraine.
If either or both of those things happen, then Sunak should get some credit, but I will venture no prediction on whether he will.
PS - Thanks to Malmesbury for reminding me about the "Catholic Protestants". I had heard about that arrangement, perhaps in the Economist, but forgotten about it.
Even most Catholics today are not Roman Catholics as would have been understood 100 years ago as under Pope Francis celebration of the Latin Mass, the standard Mass pre Vatican II, continues to be restricted despite a more relaxed approach under the late Pope Benedict. https://twitter.com/CatholicHerald/status/1630216170283454464?s=20
At least in the Church of England we traditionalist Anglicans don't have to get a Bishops permission and a a dispensation from the Dicastery for Divine Worship to perform 1662 BCP services in our Parish churches as traditionalist RCs now do to have a Latin Mass in their Parish church
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
Fantastic news. Hopefully Braverman will now do one.
It seems Sunak anticipates greater cooperation with Macron and the EU over the boat issue as a result of the new friendlier relationship
Confirmation of membership of ECHR seems a sensible part of this rapprochement
He seems to learn fast.
Sunak and Hunt are clearly aware that resolution of the NIP is essential and no doubt sees an opportunity to grow closer to the EU which I expect is broadly welcomed by most
Not "closer" to the EU. But a more pragmatic, workable relationship - now it is shorn of the "punishment beating" mentality in Brussels.
That's what all these suggestions about the Alliance Party redesignating as Unionist are all about.
Is that actually even slightly likely, or is it more like the suggestions that Sinn Fein might have taken their Westminster seats to vote in some Brexit vote or other -- theoretically possible but in practice a pigs-flying event ?
I don't know to be honest. But it seems a lot more likely than Sinn Fein taking Westminster seats. It isn't difficult to make a case that Alliance designating as Unionists is an administrative trick that doesn't fundamentally undermine their message of straddling and aiming to draw votes from, both communities. Sinn Fein would have to swear allegiance to the Crown.
Alliance designating as Unionists will never happen. It would be to set fire to and destroy everything they have worked for, For decades.
The Shinners et al have tried to paint them as “really Unionists” for years.
As expected, Deltapoll has given the Conservatives a much needed boost after another dreadful Redfield & Wilton poll but I've yet to see the data tables which are, to be fair, short on much detail.
It would be useful if Deltapoll provided the detail other pollsters provide - no sample numbers or weighting generally rendering the sub samples meaningless.
Still, apparently all you have to do is run the headline numbers through Baxter to provide the truth. Needless to say, that's flawed - the headline R&W figures through Baxter leave the Conservatives with 34 seats - applying the England swing and you come up with just under 100.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
And having said that. Just been to floss and pulled half a tooth out. Happy days! Am falling apart.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No we're nowhere near what May proposed. She proposed a no way out backstop for the whole of the UK. We'd still be there if that had been implemented as the inertia factor on the EU side would be huge and the inertia factor for Brexit 2 would be even bigger for the UK to pull out of the EU deal.
I don’t agree.
It's your prerogative to disagree with reality if you want, but it doesn't make for a useful discussion.
Mays deal envisaged a new and subsequent arrangement in 2020. Specific arrangements on Northern Ireland were supposed to be agreed with the EU and the UK was free to take specific proposals to a Joint Committee.
As I said in my original post, while the UK did not retain a unilateral right to just break off this agreement, it is stretching things beyond credibly to think the UK signed up to a for-ever customs union.
From a pure negotiating perspective, I can see why some want to claim that it was better to get to where we are today via the kind of hard break Boris “negotiated”, but I’m afraid that the vassalage idea around May’s deal was totally overblown, and Boris’s route cost the economy many many billions.
It wasn't overblown, it would have been the legal reality in the May deal. The UK would be stuck in the backstop with no unilateral mechanism to exit other than abrogating the treaty. Even the TCA has a 12 month divorce proceeding, the May WA didn't even have that. It was legitimately permanent purgatory for the UK stuck in the single market and customs union with no seat at the EU table and no legal mechanism to exit without the EU agreeing. It was a disaster and I said at the time it was a disaster.
What you call purgatory, I call insurance. Abrogating the treaty would have been the last recourse, but the intention was actually to make a new agreement sans the customs union.
Basically the argument rests on whether the “backstop” arrangements were in the interests of the EU against potential negotiated alternatives down the line. Those arguing the “purgatory” position were either taking the position that they were, or that the EU did not seek to act in its own interests where those interests might also coincide with the UK’s and potential to demonstrate “success” of Brexit. The “insurance” advocates basically disagree with this, argue that the backstop was an unstable position in neither party’s interests and that reality would drive its eventual replacement.
I think I agree, but I’d add that the purgatorial argument just happens to tie in with what was good for Boris’s career.
Purgatorialists were played. AND it cost the economy billions.
Yes. And you (I think) made the valid point above that if May's agreement was legally impossible to exit then so was Johnson's. Given that (having been trapped in it) Johnson's Govt proposed unilateral action through UK legislation to exit it then logically so could the same have been done under May's agreement. I think (subject to contradiction) that the supposed legal justification for the unilateral action within the NI Protocol bill was also available within the May agreement. Basically if the NI Protocol allowed provisions for suspension, then so did the May agreement.
Geoffrey Cox argued that we couldn't unilaterally exit the backstop. But then i suspect he would have taken the same view over the NI Protocol.
False comparison.
May's deal left us unable to get out, while still being in the EU's arrangements, with no unilateral exits.
Boris's deal already had us out of the EU's arrangements, and had multiple unilateral exits.
Yes, it is the accident of Boris's deal, the succession shenanigans making further leadership changes after Sunak very difficult, and leading to a solidly administrative PM that the EU have some degree of trust in that have allowed us a deal that gets us much of what May was trying to achieve in NI whilst being out/out.
Every single bit of the last 4 years of bonkers Tory politics was absolutely essential to ending up here. The opportunity has been taken, but it wasn't some master plan.
The other key thing was the support of Starmers Labour, making any Tory rebellion a pointless gesture.
Imagine if someone had taken a bipartisan approach earlier on.
The DUP are a bunch of prize knobends. What purpose do they serve beyond perennially agitating for endless dispute and disruption? Let the Alliance self-designate as Unionist for constitution convenience and Michelle O'Neill can lead NI as FM without the moronic Orange Brigade. Naomi Long as DFM.
No, the UUP could do that if they back the Deal, not the Alliance
If the DUP refuse to take part in governing their own province, nominate the next biggest party. Find a way! Change the law if necessary.
So abolish the Good Friday Agreement. 🤔
From what I've heard of the deal, I like it. It seems sensible. It seems like what I was saying we should do for years but people kept saying was an impossible unicorn.
But as far as the Good Friday Agreement goes, it isn't up to you and me who runs the province, its upto the two elected parties representing the cross community. Either a deal is reached satisfying them, or there's no deal as far as Stormont is concerned. Unless you repeal and abolish the Good Friday Agreement.
I don't think the Good Friday Agreement refers to "the two elected parties representing the cross community".
The reference is to "unionist and nationalist designations". It doesn't mention the DUP or largest party. I think there is scope for sidelining the DUP.
That's what all these suggestions about the Alliance Party redesignating as Unionist are all about.
Alliance can designate as they please, they have 17 MLAs, the DUP have 25, the UUP 9 and TUV 1.
So even if the Alliance change designation, then that leaves them well short of 40% of the designated Unionists.
The point is to remove the DUP veto, not the veto of a united unionist community.
The point is to come up with bizarre ways to circumvent the Good Friday Agreement and try to reduce the 40% of the community requirement to be filled just the UUP from Unionists which only have a quarter of them.
The GFA says 40% of the unionist community, the unionist community gave the DUP over 70% of unionist MLAs to the DUP. That's a veto they democratically chose to give, don't like the result, people need to vote differently next time.
A designated Unionist is a designated Unionist. Designation is self-defined by the parties. You may not see it as "democratic" and an administrative trick/circumvention of the effect of the agreement. But it is unambiguously allowed within the GFA. Whether it will actually happen or not is another matter. Would depend on the electoral consequences for the Alliance and/or any non DUP unionist parties that went along with it.
However, the Alliance's ultimate objective is to straddle the partisan divide and make community vetoes unnecessary. And even if they don't currently designate as Unionist, it doesn't follow that they don't represent voters from the Unionist community. Just not exclusively. So in that sense it could possibly align within their raison d'etre.
Especially if the expression of democratic will is seen as being thwarted by all decisions being delegated to Westminster. What is the lesser of two evils from a pure democratic perspective? As opposed to democracy as interpreted through the intent of the GFA.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
And having said that. Just been to floss and pulled half a tooth out. Happy days! Am falling apart.
Rees Mogg has reservations about ECJ having final say over the Deal in NI which is still making him wary of the Deal. He says the DUP response will be key for whether the Deal will be an acceptable Deal for the whole UK.
So looks like ERG waiting for DUP response, then they will take the same line
If Johnson is pushed back to leading a small group of the party's nutters, in opposition to what is widely seen as pragmatic good sense in the national interest, that in itself would be a humiliation.
Trouble for him is that filing through the lobbies to back Sunak's trashing of his own work and legacy, without having anything significant to say on the matter, is also a humiliation.
Sunak hasn't trashed Boris's work, quite the opposite. This is a continuation of what Boris and Truss were negotiating via the NI Protocol Bill.
If this is such a trashing, perhaps you could name the key differences between what Boris was proposing eight months ago, and what was negotiated today.
Today is continuity Boris. It just has a different name on the tin, as Boris has gone now.
Lol. The contrarian lives!
Yet Johnson himself is holed up somewhere wondering if he has the capital and backing to oppose the deal.
That depends if he seriously thinks he can take over again, or would be content to merely wreck things even more completely as revenge. He definitely has the capital and backing for the latter.
It just might be a counter-intuitive situation where it's actually in Boris's interests to back the deal.
Back the deal, improve his reputation, "now acting very responsibly etc", then when Con still miles behind in polls next year he's in stronger position to take over - ie play long game for once.
As expected, Deltapoll has given the Conservatives a much needed boost after another dreadful Redfield & Wilton poll but I've yet to see the data tables which are, to be fair, short on much detail.
It would be useful if Deltapoll provided the detail other pollsters provide - no sample numbers or weighting generally rendering the sub samples meaningless.
Still, apparently all you have to do is run the headline numbers through Baxter to provide the truth. Needless to say, that's flawed - the headline R&W figures through Baxter leave the Conservatives with 34 seats - applying the England swing and you come up with just under 100.
Deltapoll however gives the Conservatives nearly 200 seats, the key is in large part due to its far lower RefUK share than Redfield
Wonder if Boris has written both his articles yet. One backing the deal, one denouncing it.
Now that is unfair. Sometimes he says yes in person at a weekend retreat, leaves, then sees someone else has quit first and realises he has to change his position as well.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
1) 1700 pages of EU law disapplied, with most trade rules coming from the UK legal side (including food safety), so ECJ presence seems pretty limited
2) UK VAT and excise rates and calculations apply, not Irish or EU ones
3) Free GB-NI trade for medicines, medical products, agriculture, construction goods, steel. UK regulation, not EU, on food, jewellery, clothes and medicines applies
4) Data sharing based on existing data collection, so no additional bureaucratic burden for small businesses
5) Stormont break only applies to NEW EU laws - but can be used just by a minority at Stormont AND challenges to it will not be decided by ECJ, but an independent body.
6) Stormont break requires the block by Stormont AND a UK government veto
7) New legal commitment on both UK and EU to protect UK internal market
8) GB-NI trade will be based on UK commercial regulation, not international customs.
Overall I would say this is more like 3-0 for the UK position than 3-1. But both sides win from the deal.
It's just as advertised and, arguably, even better - a fundamental and radical rewrite of the whole NI protocol.
Also, I note that it effectively introduces a new digital border between NI and Eire to monitor north-south movement to compensate, which is a massive concession and something I'd jump on if I were the DUP.
It also sets the precedent of digital borders between the UK and EU, which could be used to reduce trade barriers elsewhere in future. AND the UK can still sign trade deals elsewhere and filter immigration.
Rishi has played a blinder.
Short of agreeing a bit of choreography where the whole EU Commission came into Whitehall and went down on both knees in front of the British government, crying and begging for mercy, whilst the national anthem was played on loudspeaker and a list of famous British military victories read aloud to them accompanied by the Life Guards shouting "Huzzah!" I don't see how how he could have done any better.
True, but the really sad thing is that we didn’t need to elect a tactical genius to achieve all this, but simply to stop electing childish tw*ts who only saw the EU as a straw person to be insulted whenever it suited for personal or political advantage.
The EU were being childish tw*ts as well.
Precisely this sort of deal was being proposed by several of us years ago and it was poo-poohed and lampooned by UTOA Remainers on here as cakeism and fantasy.
They're not laughing now.
FPT - we are, mind. This is just one step back towards the single market. Tick tock.
Rishi does it better. Thanks his predecessors for their role in achieving this deal. Much hilarity.
Whether or not Sunak was being serious, he's right. The EU did not want the protocol unilaterally taken apart, and it is Truss's bill, continued by Boris, that has got them to compromise. If it had not, the dropping of the bill wouldn't be in the agreement.
It is good that a solution has been found, and good that it has been won by compromise and diplomacy not conflict.
Its been won by conflict, compromise and diplomacy.
Diplomacy is what happens at the end of conflict, not just instead of it.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No we're nowhere near what May proposed. She proposed a no way out backstop for the whole of the UK. We'd still be there if that had been implemented as the inertia factor on the EU side would be huge and the inertia factor for Brexit 2 would be even bigger for the UK to pull out of the EU deal.
I don’t agree.
It's your prerogative to disagree with reality if you want, but it doesn't make for a useful discussion.
Mays deal envisaged a new and subsequent arrangement in 2020. Specific arrangements on Northern Ireland were supposed to be agreed with the EU and the UK was free to take specific proposals to a Joint Committee.
As I said in my original post, while the UK did not retain a unilateral right to just break off this agreement, it is stretching things beyond credibly to think the UK signed up to a for-ever customs union.
From a pure negotiating perspective, I can see why some want to claim that it was better to get to where we are today via the kind of hard break Boris “negotiated”, but I’m afraid that the vassalage idea around May’s deal was totally overblown, and Boris’s route cost the economy many many billions.
It wasn't overblown, it would have been the legal reality in the May deal. The UK would be stuck in the backstop with no unilateral mechanism to exit other than abrogating the treaty. Even the TCA has a 12 month divorce proceeding, the May WA didn't even have that. It was legitimately permanent purgatory for the UK stuck in the single market and customs union with no seat at the EU table and no legal mechanism to exit without the EU agreeing. It was a disaster and I said at the time it was a disaster.
What you call purgatory, I call insurance. Abrogating the treaty would have been the last recourse, but the intention was actually to make a new agreement sans the customs union.
Basically the argument rests on whether the “backstop” arrangements were in the interests of the EU against potential negotiated alternatives down the line. Those arguing the “purgatory” position were either taking the position that they were, or that the EU did not seek to act in its own interests where those interests might also coincide with the UK’s and potential to demonstrate “success” of Brexit. The “insurance” advocates basically disagree with this, argue that the backstop was an unstable position in neither party’s interests and that reality would drive its eventual replacement.
I think I agree, but I’d add that the purgatorial argument just happens to tie in with what was good for Boris’s career.
Purgatorialists were played. AND it cost the economy billions.
Yes. And you (I think) made the valid point above that if May's agreement was legally impossible to exit then so was Johnson's. Given that (having been trapped in it) Johnson's Govt proposed unilateral action through UK legislation to exit it then logically so could the same have been done under May's agreement. I think (subject to contradiction) that the supposed legal justification for the unilateral action within the NI Protocol bill was also available within the May agreement. Basically if the NI Protocol allowed provisions for suspension, then so did the May agreement.
Geoffrey Cox argued that we couldn't unilaterally exit the backstop. But then i suspect he would have taken the same view over the NI Protocol.
False comparison.
May's deal left us unable to get out, while still being in the EU's arrangements, with no unilateral exits.
Boris's deal already had us out of the EU's arrangements, and had multiple unilateral exits.
Yes, it is the accident of Boris's deal, the succession shenanigans making further leadership changes after Sunak very difficult, and leading to a solidly administrative PM that the EU have some degree of trust in that have allowed us a deal that gets us much of what May was trying to achieve in NI whilst being out/out.
Every single bit of the last 4 years of bonkers Tory politics was absolutely essential to ending up here. The opportunity has been taken, but it wasn't some master plan.
The other key thing was the support of Starmers Labour, making any Tory rebellion a pointless gesture.
Imagine if someone had taken a bipartisan approach earlier on.
So, Corbyn and Starmer are to be added in to the essential prerequisites for this deal as well. Lordy.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
I had it last week. Wasn’t particularly ill, but had a resting pulse rate around 95 all week (normal for me is mid 70s). All clear at the weekend, but still no energy.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
And having said that. Just been to floss and pulled half a tooth out. Happy days! Am falling apart.
Flossing with pliers or something?
Ha ha. No. My crown fell out. I was going to get it sorted over half term. But I've got COVID so had to cancel. Worrying that it just came out. Was nowhere near half a tooth! On the other hand. Had I had the mould done it would now be redundant. So swings and roundabouts.
It was preferable to a No Deal, is about all that can be said about it, while noting that Boris actually set much of the timescale and laid the tracks toward a No Deal.
It also laid the pathway to this deal by binding the EU to a trusted trader scheme, essentially the green and red channels we have in the Windsor deal that removes checks for 97% of goods. Again, the May deal didn't have that in there and neither did it have A16. Both of those were at play over the last year while this deal was being hammered out.
The EU's refusal to implement the trusted trader scheme gave the UK legal grounds to pull the A16 trigger and that is why the negotiations started, the subsequent war in Ukraine, the energy crisis and other events which have shown we were better working together has solidified that resolve on both sides and Rishi being a more reliable partner who wouldn't brief the Telegraph the day after trashing the agreed deal all fed into the current deal on the table but it was A16 and the EU's blanket refusal to implement the agreed deal that kicked it all off.
The May withdrawal agreement had neither of those, what would have brought the EU to the negotiating table?
The EU never left the negotiating table under this counter-factual.
I think you overweight A16 (which ultras actually decided was insufficient hence the abrogation bill) and underweight the “facts on the ground” and overall realpolitik as sources of leverage.
Boris was a costly and confidence-eroding interregnum. There’s no evidence apart from conjecture that the NIP has delivered a better ultimate outcome, albeit we can certainly count the hit to trade.
The EU absolutely left the negotiating table. Until late 2021 they kept repeating that it was up to the UK to implement the NI protocol and it wouldn't be renegotiated at all. It was only once legal advice suggested that the UK had grounds to pull the A16 trigger due to the EU refusing to implement their part of the deal while attempting to enforce border controls into NI.
They left the negotiating table under our timeline, not the May counterfactual. And no surprise, either, because Johnson and Frost were widely understood, even inside the UK, as utter charlatans.
They were brought to the table by the NI Protocol Bill, which was leverage.
Leverage we only had, as we were in the Johnson/Frost timeline.
Keep telling yourself that. Your hero is a busted flush, and your other hero is whatever gets stuck in a busted flush.
"Heroes" belong to comic books, and their adaptations, not politics.
May's backstop got us nowhere. Boris's agreement got us to this happy end state.
If you'd explained what is negotiated now, in GB and NI, five years ago who would have been calling for that? Is this arrangement closer to Barnier or Frost?
This is what I was calling for and you lot were calling a "unicorn" five years ago.
Lol. Barty Roberts the last (gullible) man standing that still believes the lies and deceptions of Boris Johnson. I award you this years Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf Cup for absurd spinning and refusal to accept the obvious in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Have been absent. Intriguing rumours on here I see about H&M, not seen a sausage about it elsewhere.
Speaking of not hearing a sausage elsewhere, what was the outcome of the Finland rumour? We’re two British PMs and a monarch on now. Surely it’s safe to give a hint
As @Cicero as our representative on the spot, I would defer to his judgement. The latest Kantar Emor poll suggests the governing coalition has 48.7% of the vote and the combined opposition 50.5% so a virtual dead heat.
However, the seat distribution will probably be enough to ensure the Government keeps a tiny majority with perhaps 51-53 of the 101 seats in the new Riigikogu. Likely to be six parties represented with E200 certain to win seats and be the fourth largest of the aforementioned six.
Woops. This is not going to be a walk in the park.
Night watchman, surely?
Yes. Never been convinced by the 'night watchman' tactic.
It can work, and it definitely prevents a better batsman being exposed in poor conditions at the end of the day. Also can be fun next morning (as Alex Tudor showed back in the 90’s vs the Kiwis). Counter argument is that the better batsman should show some grit and do their job.
I think it’s going one of two ways. Either a clatter of wickets and we go down swinging, possibly before lunch, or we win with three or four wickets in hand, fairly easily.
Have been absent. Intriguing rumours on here I see about H&M, not seen a sausage about it elsewhere.
Speaking of not hearing a sausage elsewhere, what was the outcome of the Finland rumour? We’re two British PMs and a monarch on now. Surely it’s safe to give a hint
I suspect the Finland rumour was all bullshit, prove me wrong, those who were in the know…
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
Take it easy. It is a crappy thing to have.
Hope no lasting damage to smell and taste.
I have it too at the moment. Was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to smell my 10 month's old nappy. A short lived concern
Funny thing is, up till the last 12 months, we would have had NZ as huge favourites with such a large 4th innings target. Yet somehow it’s become accepted that it should be a cakewalk.
I think it’s going one of two ways. Either a clatter of wickets and we go down swinging, possibly before lunch, or we win with three or four wickets in hand, fairly easily.
Yes. The 3rd innings relying on spin after the ball aged suggests a few up front for NZ and then a couple of stands they can do little about.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
Take it easy. It is a crappy thing to have.
Hope no lasting damage to smell and taste.
I have it too at the moment. Was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to smell my 10 month's old nappy. A short lived concern
He's talking sense again Triumph for Rishi Sunak. Narrative changer. Will be seen as a potential political game changer. For about a week. Then normal service will be resumed. But credit where it’s due. He’s delivered a serious deal. And totally outflanked Boris*.
Funny thing is, up till the last 12 months, we would have had NZ as huge favourites with such a large 4th innings target. Yet somehow it’s become accepted that it should be a cakewalk.
258 on a still pretty flat pitch, with NZ having left themselves a bowler short in selection? It's only because England were so awful under the last year or so of Root that they mightn't have been considered favourites. England have only lost their openers.
England have chased harder totals multiple times in worse conditions over the last 20 years.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
In fairness to Moon. She's said before that she dictates through speech recognition.
What? 😠
Sorry. Thought you had. Apologies if I recall incorrectly.
Hope you feel much better soon.
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
I've actually tested positive for COVID. So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
Take it easy. It is a crappy thing to have.
Hope no lasting damage to smell and taste.
I have it too at the moment. Was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to smell my 10 month's old nappy. A short lived concern
Very different to the last one. Apart from the fatigue. Simply can't eat at all. No appetite. Broken tooth won't help I guess.
Today also gives Sir Keir Starmer the opportunity, if he becomes Prime Minister, to unpick the wider Brexit deal to make it better.
Sunak has created a great estoppel by convention for second referendum backer Starmer.
Absolutely spot on TSE. Today is a key moment in UK politics, for the signal it sends imminent incoming Labour government and other silent remainers - having two stabs at it, the Tories still accept ECJ having the final say.
Reread clause 63 above.
I've helpfully bolded the key passage for you.
It’s not a break though is it. A break is something you giving someone so if they pull it something stops. To the DUP this is not set up as a break for them, you concede.
I agree with you they are not keen on returning to power sharing for other reasons.
FFS why is everyone misspelling 'brake?'
And yes, it is a brake, just one they can't apply as a sole party because they would misuse it. It doesn't say it has to represent both communities, just two parties.
The city has three Republican/Nationalist MPs and one Unionist. Like elsewhere, the suburbs deliver very different political outcomes to the city core.
Funny thing is, up till the last 12 months, we would have had NZ as huge favourites with such a large 4th innings target. Yet somehow it’s become accepted that it should be a cakewalk.
258 on a still pretty flat pitch, with NZ having left themselves a bowler short in selection? It's only because England were so awful under the last year or so of Root that they mightn't have been considered favourites. England have only lost their openers.
England have chased harder totals multiple times in worse conditions over the last 20 years.
Yes, that's fair. I think we are seeing (certainly in England, but also elsewhere) the emergence of pitches that get easier and easier, rather than harder over the 5:days. Makes the old adages look a bit silly. Setting 220+ used to be seen as challenging, less so nowadays.
Have been absent. Intriguing rumours on here I see about H&M, not seen a sausage about it elsewhere.
Speaking of not hearing a sausage elsewhere, what was the outcome of the Finland rumour? We’re two British PMs and a monarch on now. Surely it’s safe to give a hint
Have been absent. Intriguing rumours on here I see about H&M, not seen a sausage about it elsewhere.
Speaking of not hearing a sausage elsewhere, what was the outcome of the Finland rumour? We’re two British PMs and a monarch on now. Surely it’s safe to give a hint
And tonight… for my final Westminster Hour as a BBC staffer, look who dropped in to talk to me and my marvellous Editor Libby Jukes. Hear Sir John Major’s thoughts on Northern Ireland and politics in general at 10pm https://twitter.com/BBCcarolynquinn/status/1629924522903085056
Funny thing is, up till the last 12 months, we would have had NZ as huge favourites with such a large 4th innings target. Yet somehow it’s become accepted that it should be a cakewalk.
258 on a still pretty flat pitch, with NZ having left themselves a bowler short in selection? It's only because England were so awful under the last year or so of Root that they mightn't have been considered favourites. England have only lost their openers.
England have chased harder totals multiple times in worse conditions over the last 20 years.
Yes, that's fair. I think we are seeing (certainly in England, but also elsewhere) the emergence of pitches that get easier and easier, rather than harder over the 5:days. Makes the old adages look a bit silly. Setting 220+ used to be seen as challenging, less so nowadays.
Perhaps not easier, per se (except where conditions have been made artificially difficult in the first innings eg. by leaving excessive grass on the wicket). But not deteriorating.
However, it also has to be remembered that many of the 'stats' quoted around the supposed difficulty of 4th innings chases often do not hold up on further examination. Because, variously, of low sample sizes, stats often exclude high totals in a losing/drawing cause, slower scoring rates and/or time lost in matches to weather meaning higher 4th innings totals often weren't historically gettable in time available etc etc.
England may not win this, they might even be the first English team to lose having declared and enforced the follow-on, but such aggressive play increases the odds of both winning and losing.
I have respect for this team, even if they lose today. A more guarded team won't have declared so early and may have got the draw, but a more guarded team would win much fewer games as well. Taking the chance is worth it, even if you sometimes lose.
Have been absent. Intriguing rumours on here I see about H&M, not seen a sausage about it elsewhere.
Speaking of not hearing a sausage elsewhere, what was the outcome of the Finland rumour? We’re two British PMs and a monarch on now. Surely it’s safe to give a hint
I am not convinced myself, and it is far from a split, just Harry getting a bit homesick.
What a sad tale.
I found "Spare" really interesting. Not so much the bits that were spread about, but rather the whole structure of the Royal Family and how it all works. Very strict on archaic protocol (indeed one of Harry's grievances is that he wasn't given due respect) but a pretty casual response to Harry's decades of smoking spliffs. He is pretty free about confessing this, and I think it does explain some of his paranoia.
A fascinating book, but not always in the way intended.
I think though that Harry will stick to Meghan and vice versa. They need each other.
Funny thing is, up till the last 12 months, we would have had NZ as huge favourites with such a large 4th innings target. Yet somehow it’s become accepted that it should be a cakewalk.
258 on a still pretty flat pitch, with NZ having left themselves a bowler short in selection? It's only because England were so awful under the last year or so of Root that they mightn't have been considered favourites. England have only lost their openers.
England have chased harder totals multiple times in worse conditions over the last 20 years.
Yes, that's fair. I think we are seeing (certainly in England, but also elsewhere) the emergence of pitches that get easier and easier, rather than harder over the 5:days. Makes the old adages look a bit silly. Setting 220+ used to be seen as challenging, less so nowadays.
Perhaps not easier, per se (except where conditions have been made artificially difficult in the first innings eg. by leaving excessive grass on the wicket). But not deteriorating.
However, it also has to be remembered that many of the 'stats' quoted around the supposed difficulty of 4th innings chases often do not hold up on further examination. Because, variously, of low sample sizes, stats often exclude high totals in a losing/drawing cause, slower scoring rates and/or time lost in matches to weather meaning higher 4th innings totals often weren't historically gettable in time available etc etc.
Also fair. Old player wisdom does not always equal reality!
Funny thing is, up till the last 12 months, we would have had NZ as huge favourites with such a large 4th innings target. Yet somehow it’s become accepted that it should be a cakewalk.
258 on a still pretty flat pitch, with NZ having left themselves a bowler short in selection? It's only because England were so awful under the last year or so of Root that they mightn't have been considered favourites. England have only lost their openers.
England have chased harder totals multiple times in worse conditions over the last 20 years.
Yes, that's fair. I think we are seeing (certainly in England, but also elsewhere) the emergence of pitches that get easier and easier, rather than harder over the 5:days. Makes the old adages look a bit silly. Setting 220+ used to be seen as challenging, less so nowadays.
Perhaps not easier, per se (except where conditions have been made artificially difficult in the first innings eg. by leaving excessive grass on the wicket). But not deteriorating.
However, it also has to be remembered that many of the 'stats' quoted around the supposed difficulty of 4th innings chases often do not hold up on further examination. Because, variously, of low sample sizes, stats often exclude high totals in a losing/drawing cause, slower scoring rates and/or time lost in matches to weather meaning higher 4th innings totals often weren't historically gettable in time available etc etc.
Also stats invariably exclude instances where eg a team achieves the 4th innings total having only lost a couple of wickets and could have scored much more, and had time to do so too, but the match is over as they have nothing left to chase.
Funny thing is, up till the last 12 months, we would have had NZ as huge favourites with such a large 4th innings target. Yet somehow it’s become accepted that it should be a cakewalk.
258 on a still pretty flat pitch, with NZ having left themselves a bowler short in selection? It's only because England were so awful under the last year or so of Root that they mightn't have been considered favourites. England have only lost their openers.
England have chased harder totals multiple times in worse conditions over the last 20 years.
Yes, that's fair. I think we are seeing (certainly in England, but also elsewhere) the emergence of pitches that get easier and easier, rather than harder over the 5:days. Makes the old adages look a bit silly. Setting 220+ used to be seen as challenging, less so nowadays.
Perhaps not easier, per se (except where conditions have been made artificially difficult in the first innings eg. by leaving excessive grass on the wicket). But not deteriorating.
However, it also has to be remembered that many of the 'stats' quoted around the supposed difficulty of 4th innings chases often do not hold up on further examination. Because, variously, of low sample sizes, stats often exclude high totals in a losing/drawing cause, slower scoring rates and/or time lost in matches to weather meaning higher 4th innings totals often weren't historically gettable in time available etc etc.
Also fair. Old player wisdom does not always equal reality!
He's talking sense again Triumph for Rishi Sunak. Narrative changer. Will be seen as a potential political game changer. For about a week. Then normal service will be resumed. But credit where it’s due. He’s delivered a serious deal. And totally outflanked Boris*.
Fantastic news. Hopefully Braverman will now do one.
It seems Sunak anticipates greater cooperation with Macron and the EU over the boat issue as a result of the new friendlier relationship
Confirmation of membership of ECHR seems a sensible part of this rapprochement
He seems to learn fast.
Sunak and Hunt are clearly aware that resolution of the NIP is essential and no doubt sees an opportunity to grow closer to the EU which I expect is broadly welcomed by most
Not "closer" to the EU. But a more pragmatic, workable relationship - now it is shorn of the "punishment beating" mentality in Brussels.
What a ludicrous post. Punishment beatings for goodness sake.
Comments
The site needs you back to your cognisant best.
How many aborted brexits have we had? I’ve almost lost count….
Dave and George didn’t bother trying.
The public toyed with Corbyn’s hard left brexit, then ultimately rejected it/him.
May’s technocratic brexit couldn’t keep the bastards on side.
Johnson’s oven ready brexit was bullshit that ended up as an unworkable mess. In the meantime he (and Sunak) bled the treasury dry.
Truss’s Singapore-on-Thames brexit fell flat on its face in the most spectacular way imaginable.
Will Sunak’s Brexit stick?
Is this the end? The event at the end of the process?
I posted on here in 2016, that the consensus had been smashed and it would take some time for a new one to emerge.
Is this now it?
Maybe there’s a final act? A hard right brexit?
Please no. Make it stop.
The GFA says 40% of the unionist community, the unionist community gave the DUP over 70% of unionist MLAs to the DUP. That's a veto they democratically chose to give, don't like the result, people need to vote differently next time.
So please excuse the brain fog and unusual chippiness everyone.
It is good that a solution has been found, and good that it has been won by compromise and diplomacy not conflict.
See here.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/alliance-party-set-to-re-designate-its-mlas-as-unionists-1.402421
Every single bit of the last 4 years of
bonkers Tory politics was absolutely essential to ending up here. The opportunity has been taken, but it wasn't some master plan.
Business as usual or slowed down?
"Is the level of support for this such that if I oppose it, it will look as if I am being so unreasonable that the end result will be a loss of support for me?"
I would suggest you are kind to yourself and take plenty of rest, drink lots of warm liquids and keep warm
Hope it soon passes
Sadly - for the second night in a row - it is cloudy here. Grrr.
https://twitter.com/CatholicHerald/status/1630216170283454464?s=20
At least in the Church of England we traditionalist Anglicans don't have to get a Bishops permission and a a dispensation from the Dicastery for Divine Worship to perform 1662 BCP services in our Parish churches as traditionalist RCs now do to have a Latin Mass in their Parish church
This is not going to be a walk in the park.
Hope no lasting damage to smell and taste.
The Shinners et al have tried to paint them as “really Unionists” for years.
It would be useful if Deltapoll provided the detail other pollsters provide - no sample numbers or weighting generally rendering the sub samples meaningless.
Still, apparently all you have to do is run the headline numbers through Baxter to provide the truth. Needless to say, that's flawed - the headline R&W figures through Baxter leave the Conservatives with 34 seats - applying the England swing and you come up with just under 100.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/27/how-seriously-should-we-take-the-us-does-covid-lab-leak-theory
Do you think we will ever stop seeing analysis like this from the liberal media?
Am falling apart.
Imagine if someone had taken a bipartisan approach earlier on.
However, the Alliance's ultimate objective is to straddle the partisan divide and make community vetoes unnecessary. And even if they don't currently designate as Unionist, it doesn't follow that they don't represent voters from the Unionist community. Just not exclusively. So in that sense it could possibly align within their raison d'etre.
Especially if the expression of democratic will is seen as being thwarted by all decisions being delegated to Westminster. What is the lesser of two evils from a pure democratic perspective? As opposed to democracy as interpreted through the intent of the GFA.
Back the deal, improve his reputation, "now acting very responsibly etc", then when Con still miles behind in polls next year he's in stronger position to take over - ie play long game for once.
Diplomacy is what happens at the end of conflict, not just instead of it.
All clear at the weekend, but still no energy.
Get well soon.
Worrying that it just came out. Was nowhere near half a tooth! On the other hand. Had I had the mould done it would now be redundant.
So swings and roundabouts.
Boris Johnson was an incompetent twat.
Speaking of not hearing a sausage elsewhere, what was the outcome of the Finland rumour? We’re two British PMs and a monarch on now. Surely it’s safe to give a hint
As @Cicero as our representative on the spot, I would defer to his judgement. The latest Kantar Emor poll suggests the governing coalition has 48.7% of the vote and the combined opposition 50.5% so a virtual dead heat.
However, the seat distribution will probably be enough to ensure the Government keeps a tiny majority with perhaps 51-53 of the 101 seats in the new Riigikogu. Likely to be six parties represented with E200 certain to win seats and be the fourth largest of the aforementioned six.
Political leaders react to North Wales health board's return to special measures
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/on-labours-watch-reaction-north-26345344#ICID=Android_DailyPostNewsApp_AppShare
They’re supposed to have a go before the close, rather than defend.
Counter argument is that the better batsman should show some grit and do their job.
I can see them doing it.
A short lived concern
Catholics (by upbringing) now 49% of the population over there. Only 36% Protestant. 3% other faiths, also 12% none.
https://explore.nisra.gov.uk/area-explorer-2021/N09000003
Triumph for Rishi Sunak. Narrative changer. Will be seen as a potential political game changer. For about a week. Then normal service will be resumed. But credit where it’s due. He’s delivered a serious deal. And totally outflanked Boris*.
* (For now)
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1630281015716458499?cxt=HHwWhsC9ncf89Z8tAAAA
England have chased harder totals multiple times in worse conditions over the last 20 years.
https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2022/12/03/poll-less-enthusiasm-for-unity-among-catholics-in-north-than-among-republics-respondents/
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/prince-harry-feels-stuck-meghan-29312569?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar
I am not convinced myself, and it is far from a split, just Harry getting a bit homesick.
https://twitter.com/BBCcarolynquinn/status/1629924522903085056
However, it also has to be remembered that many of the 'stats' quoted around the supposed difficulty of 4th innings chases often do not hold up on further examination. Because, variously, of low sample sizes, stats often exclude high totals in a losing/drawing cause, slower scoring rates and/or time lost in matches to weather meaning higher 4th innings totals often weren't historically gettable in time available etc etc.
England may not win this, they might even be the first English team to lose having declared and enforced the follow-on, but such aggressive play increases the odds of both winning and losing.
I have respect for this team, even if they lose today. A more guarded team won't have declared so early and may have got the draw, but a more guarded team would win much fewer games as well. Taking the chance is worth it, even if you sometimes lose.
A fascinating book, but not always in the way intended.
I think though that Harry will stick to Meghan and vice versa. They need each other.
Balls, that was poor from Root.
It won't win him the GE, but Sunak has seen off Boris for good now and for that we can all be grateful.
https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/images/maps/map12.htm