Tag: European Union

Good Friday Agreement responsible for huge economic growth says Ibec

Good Friday Agreement has worked for everyone on the Island of Ireland for the last 25 years. Everyone on the Island wants it to work for another 25

February 9, 2023

The huge economic growth across the island of Ireland during the past 25 years would not have been possible without the Good Friday Agreement.

That’s according to Ibec, which is appearing before an Oireachtas committee today.

The business group says there has been record levels of investment across the island and Britain.

Fergal O’Brien, Ibec’s director of lobbying and influence, says the Good Friday Agreement delivered prosperity to the island of Ireland…

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Good Friday Agreement responsible for huge economic growth says Ibec

In spite of the DUP

All because a Catholic is FM, hatred and bigotry and bloody childish tantrums…

they have always tried to undermine the GFA and now the protocol they brought about, hopefully this will show once and for all the destruction they will bring to remain in dominance and line their own pockets

Hopefully everyone will see Lynne, they’re dragging us all backwards


Boris Johnson agreed Brexit protocol knowing it was a ‘mess’, says John Major.

Johnson’s administration made promises over NI deal it knew were unworkable, former PM tells MPs

Tuesday 7th February, 2023.

John Major has launched a scathing attack on Boris Johnson’s handling of Brexit, saying his administration agreed to NI Protocol the despite knowing it was unworkable.

“That must be the first agreement in history that was signed by people who decided it was useless in the first place,” Major told a Westminster committee on Tuesday.

The former Conservative prime minister did not name his successor but expressed astonishment at the acceptance of the protocol, which Johnson used to promote an “oven-ready” Brexit deal in the 2019 election.

He said Britain’s exit from the EU was a “colossal mistake” that had left the UK outside the world’s main three power blocs. “There is America, there is China and there is the European Union. We should be in Europe.”

The blunder was worsened by the agreement to impose checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, he said.

“The protocol is a mess. It was very poorly negotiated,” Major told the Northern Ireland committee. “I think some of the promises made after the protocol that there would be no checks on trade from Britain and Northern Ireland, how those promises came to be made I cannot imagine because they were patently wrong. The protocol needs changing. I am baffled as to how we could have reached a situation where that protocol was accepted.”

Major, who was prime minister from 1990 to 1997, criticised Johnson’s administration for signing the protocol with the EU apparently on the basis that it would be later reformed. He also criticised Johnson and his successor, Liz Truss, for their threats to override the Brexit agreement.

“Even if the protocol bill was wrong that does seem to be a strange way to proceed because that sort of behaviour is pretty unwise. We, the British, would not respond to threats of that sort. Why do we think that the European Union would?”

Major was appearing as a witness at a committee hearing on the effectiveness of the institutions of the 1998 Good Friday agreement. The Democratic Unionist party (DUP) has collapsed power-sharing in Northern Ireland in a protest against the protocol, leaving the Stormont executive and assembly mothballed. The party says the protocol damages the region’s economy and its place in the UK.

We’re hearing from former Prime Minister, Sir John Major.

📺Watch live here: parliamentlive.tv/event/index/22…

https://twitter.com/CommonsNIAC/status/1622914358056570886?t=sjGlj-WQf7dBVpvIPyHytA&s=09

Major said all sides: London, Dublin, Brussels and parties in Northern Ireland, would have to compromise. “A statesmanlike response would be to recognise that nobody is going to get everything they wish, but to accept compromise in the interest of returning democratic government to Northern Ireland. That will not be easy for anyone.”

He said it seemed Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street team was making progress in talks with the EU. In a tacit rebuke to the DUP – and possibly also an appeal to Sunak to face down Tory Brexit hardliners – Major counselled compromise. “Statesmen who do that will succeed. Politicians who keep shouting slogans to their most extreme supporters will not.”

Major lauded the contribution of his Irish counterparts, Albert Reynolds and John Bruton, as well as Northern Ireland party leaders, clerics, civil servants, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair in paving the Good Friday agreement. “This is a settlement that has many parents. No one can claim full paternity.”

He expressed concern that poverty in Northern Ireland was undermining peace and reconciliation. “Economic hardship is a divisive force.”

With many thanks to: The Guardian @TheGuardian and Rory Carroll (Ireland Correspondent)
@roryrorycarroll72 for the original story.

Follow this link to to find out more on this story: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/07/boris-johnson-agreed-brexit-protocol-knowing-it-was-mess-says-john-major#Echobox=1675785051

Time to enact the St. Andrews Agreement which is to enact the GFA agreement.

There are now 321#MP’s holding Irish Passport’s – including the majority of the Orange Order in NI.

▪️Whilst they’ve taken away our right to live and work in all the EU countries.

▪️But they have made sure they still can.

#BrexitBrokeBritain #BrexitWasNotWorthIt #TheBestDealisWithEU

DUP and ERG Alliance Threatens Fresh Brexit Headache For Rishi Sunak

18th January, 2023

NI’s Democratic Unionist Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson gave a well-received address to the Conservative party’s staunchly pro-Brexit European Research Group of MP’s on Tuesday night.

Any alliance between the ERG, Brexit’s most uncompromising defenders in Westminster, and the DUP, which has repeatedly warned the UK government that any deal with the EU on the contentious NI Protocol must satisfy its strict demands before it agrees to the restoration of the province’s collapsed government at Stormont, could prove cumbersome for Rishi Sunak should he reach an agreement with Brussels.

Donaldson spoke at the ERG’s monthly plenary for over an hour, taking questions from Conservative MPs about the impasse over the post-Brexit treaty, PoliticsHome understands.

A Tory MP who attended the meeting said the ERG and DUP positions on the protocol, and what the UK should be prepared to accept in its negotiations with Brussels, were “indistinguishable”.

Donaldson’s appearance at the ERG meeting will serve as a reminder to the Prime Minister of the political trouble he could potentially face in the event of reaching an agreement with the European Commission.

Despite having voted and campaigned for Leave at the 2016 referendum, Sunak has struggled to convince some of the avid Brexiteers in his party that he is truly one of them, and risks accusations of making too many concessions to Brussels in a bid to strike a deal on the NI Protocol.

The DUP’s support will prove pivotal to the success of any agreement on Great Britain to the North of Ireland’s trade that avoids a hard border with the Republic of Ireland, and therefore the EU, which is politically untenable.

There has recently been a renewed optimism that the UK and EU will be able to reach an agreement on the NI Protocol prior to the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement on 10th April.

Fuck the DUP

UK and EU negotiators are preparing for several weeks of intense negotiations, with a Whitehall source yesterday telling PoliticsHome there was hope that a deal can be done by mid-February.

Speaking yesterday alongside Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said US President Joe Biden’s administration was “heartened” to see the UK and EU make “substantive progress toward a negotiated solution”, in a further sign that a deal could be close.

Ministers hope that reaching a deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol, which has strained UK-EU relations since it came into effect at the start of last year, will persuade Donaldson’s DUP to agree to the formation of a power-sharing government in Stormont, having blocked it for nearly a year.

The treaty was agreed as part of Brexit talks with then prime minister Boris Johnson as a way of avoiding a contentious hard border on the island of Ireland. However, it did so by erecting barriers to trade in the Irish Sea, which the DUP says has undermined NI’s place in the UK.

The biggest obstacle to the DUP’s support for any deal reached in the coming weeks is likely to be the role of the ECJ, with Donaldson warning last week that his party would not support any agreement that did not restore NI’s “constitutional” place in the UK.

Currently, EU law applies in the North of Ireland by virtue of the region’s place in the single market, and disputes arising from the post-Brexit treaty are determined by the European judges. Those familiar with negotiations say it will be the trickiest issue to resolve.

With many thanks to: PoliticsHome and @adampayne26 for the original story.

Follow this link to to read the original publication: DUP and ERG Alliance Threatens Fresh Brexit Headache For Rishi Sunak https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/dup-erg-brexit-alliance-northern-ireland-protocol-rishi-sunak

BREXIT and the DUP has guaranteed there is no path back to the previous NI status quo before Brexit

DUP WERE THE MIDWIVES OF BREXIT AND THE NI PROTOCOL

As with so many Brexit problems it is always someone else’s fault. In the case of the North of Ireland, blame lies not with those such as David Frost, Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, who signed the deal, but with Remainer opponents who “forced” them into it.

This is the justification for continued intransigence in the dispute over the NI protocol, through which Frost and Johnson eroded the province’s constitutional integrity within the UK to maximise the Brexit freedoms for the British mainland. Outfoxed by Dublin and outgunned by the EU, they agreed that the North of Ireland would become a discrete EU jurisdiction with a Brexit Sea Border in the Irish Sea.

Tories, and NI’s unionist parties, have been trying to rewrite the deal ever since — aided by the EU’s overly zealous implementation of border checks on goods from Britain. The row has resulted in political stasis within the North of Ireland and the collapse of its power-sharing executive in Stormont. Relations were further poisoned when Johnson unveiled legislation unilaterally abrogating the Good Friday Agreement (GFA)

Suddenly, there is optimism that under Rishi Sunak a reset of relations might allow a new settlement. The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, and Chris Heaton-Harris, NI Secretary of State, are working with Maroš Šefčovič’s team at the European Commission to find areas for agreement. Common ground on relaxing the border checks is close, though this resolves only some trade issues. Leo Varadkar, the Irish premier, admits all sides “made mistakes” and has suggested shelving other planned rules. A data-sharing deal has raised hopes of “express lanes” for goods intended only for the North of Ireland, to remove the checks that deter mainland firms from selling there.

Sadly, this is the easy part. Initial worries have hardened into sovereignty arguments and led the Democratic Unionist party, cheered on by Brexit hardliners, to boycott, and so bring down the Stormont executive. Placing the North of Ireland within the EU’s single market for goods left it in Brussels’ regulatory orbit with the European Court of Justice as ultimate arbiter of issues covering VAT, trade and state aid. This pass was sold by the Brexiters.

Here lies the deeper problem: that egg cannot be unscrambled. The situation can be improved and some oversight scaled back. But there is no viable outcome under which the EU surrenders all jurisdiction. The North of Ireland will not fully regain its previous status.

So the challenge is to find enough of a fudge to break the logjam, one where the UK accepts the reality but the EU agrees to use its power lightly. Multiple ideas are advanced. There is talk of restricting the ECJ’s trade remit to goods not in the express lane. Better still would be the creation of a trade arbitration panel to settle disputes, reducing the ECJ’s status as final word. This would not resolve all issues. But without concessions Sunak will face enormous and possibly fatal internal opposition from the faction in his party that already distrusts him. So there are limits to what he can sell. This is why the EU needs to help him.

Brussels might be tempted simply to deliver the trade improvements and then wait for the possibility of a more amenable Labour government. But the Ukraine crisis has highlighted the need for European unity, which cannot wait for up to two years. The conditions for agreement are here. The UK and Ireland want a deal, Brussels sees Sunak as more reliable than his predecessors and the US is pressing for a way through.

This could be a defining issue for Sunak. Standing up to his ultras to drive through a deal that improves life for the people in the North of Ireland would show him to be a politically brave problem-solver. There are other electoral benefits. He knows voters are fed up with Brexit wrangles and want him focused on other issues.

The alternative to helping Sunak may be fresh confrontation. The legislation breaching the agreement may be in parliamentary limbo but it need not stay there.

Nor can Stormont be left idle indefinitely — not least when there are pressing economic problems to tackle. The DUP’s political misjudgments on Brexit have been epic and their intransigence legendary, but an effort to mollify them must be made. This year will be the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Joe Biden may even fly in from the US for the ceremonies. But they will feel rather hollow if the executive at the centre of that deal is still shuttered.

While Sunak must resist his hardliners, he cannot be expected to commit political suicide. He needs a solution that can credibly be presented as restoring some balance on sovereignty.

It may be that no deal can satisfy his purists or persuade the DUP back into government: to compromise would be to acknowledge a reality that Brexiters cannot accept, that the North of Ireland’s previous status is irrevocably altered. NI can never go back to the way it was before the DUP pushed NI into Brexit. Mechanisms may change but tax, state aid and sovereignty issues will still bubble up, especially if the Tories do increase regulatory divergence.

So three conditions are needed. Sunak needs the gumption to drive home a deal. Brussels must help him enough to make it worth the pain and the ultras and unionists need to accept the reality to which they were the midwives. The last may be a forlorn hope, but only once they accept there is no return to the old status quo will there be hope for a deal everyone can swallow. The DUP has guaranteed there is no path back to the previous NI status quo before Brexit.

With many thanks to the:https://www.ft.com and robert.shrimsley@ft.com for the original story.

Follow this link to to find out more on this story: There is no path back to a pre-Brexit Northern Ireland: https://www.ft.com/content/f2e5a5f4-38b8-44ab-8230-ba28c5971ba4

Novel Extract – Brexit Explained

The EU wanted to cease the ongoing austerity measures and food banks in the UK by ending the massive tax-avoiding practices and Tory aspirations of turning the UK into a major global tax haven, but prominent Brexiteers managed to protect the sovereignty of our wealthy tax-dodgers by deceiving the British people into voting to leave the EU!

Novel Extract – Brexit Explained

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFkBmDf9/

UK responds to EU legal action over NI Protocol – but does not budge.

http://seachranaidhe-irishandproud.blogspot.com/2022/09/uk-responds-to-eu-legal-action-over-ni.html

The Brexit exodus of EU workers has left the UK with a ‘cost of leaving’ crisis

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/brexit-exodus-eu-workers-uk-cost-of-leaving-crisis-1804471

Scotland, Wales and the North of Ireland have refused to give consent to Brexit – but Westminster isn’t listening!!!

‘NI Protocol: UK has given itself extra time to respond to legal action launched by the EU’.

http://seachranaidhe-irishandproud.blogspot.com/2022/08/ni-protocol-uk-has-given-itself-extra.html

BREXIT SEA BORDER – NI Protocol
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