Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Poots throws a grenade on the NIP (and subsequently the peace process)...
Big question now is what the British Govt is going to do? Takeover and implement themselves?
From midnight they will be in default of their obligations and the single market will have an unprotected border.
You can count the days on one hand the rest of the single market will tolerate this.
In all likleihood Johnson will like the idea of having the EU stand up and threaten the UK. It will both distract from his recent negative headlines and also help boost British nationalism against the EU.
Of course, it won't be good for Northern Ireland but neither the DUP nor the British government care about NI.
Irish government is expecting the UK govt to intervene...
There was obviously some form of coordination with the British government and the DUP over the attempt to bring back double jobbing. The British government went back on that idea. Will they do the same here, or will they welcome these new headlines?
Looks like the British govt wants to collude based on initial response...
It's up to the EU to take a tough approach. This is a breach of a treaty if checks stopped at midnight.
Poots doesn't even have the support of the DUP so the Tories can throw him under the big red bus whenever it suits them.
Former DUP leader Edwin Poots has insisted that he “hasn’t gone away” after he failed to secure the party’s nomination to run in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections in the South Down constituency.
'"Sinn Fein MLA John O’Dowd said ... he had “no doubt” civil servants were “already taking advice on these matters.
“The civil service has its own guidance and protocols to work to and I have no doubt the civil service will be examining that very closely,” he said.'
John O'Dowd obviously thinks that the Civil Service will decide not to implement the Minister's wishes. Be interesting to see if he's right.
It would surely be taken very badly by the Commission if the British were seen to be colluding with the decision of a regional party to breach a treaty in order to gain leverage.
Surely, this is a step too far for them to tolerate.
It's a matter for the executive according to the UK government. That's new and entirely dishonest of course. It's written in to UK domestic law.
and why would paul girvan be in Derry to remember that particular atrocity?. If he went to the scene of every atrocity on its anniversary then he would have several to attend each and every day
Mod: stop trolling
Seriously? Your first post here in years and you write this? Permaban reapplied.
Speculation seems to be that Poots was given a blessing from above on this as part of the dead cat strategy to remove attention from the PM...
Complete lies here.
The protocol is written in to UK law. Anyone else reckon that the UK govt have calculated that with the Russian threat currently the EU won't want to push this? They should of course.
And it won't be lost on the EU that as the Ukraine crisis reaches tipping point the UK take an openly hostile act towards the EU.
This spells out the absurdity of the British government's position:
I'd agree they've probably calculated that the EU and US attention will be primarily on Ukraine, and as a result it will lack the robust response it might otherwise have had.
It just goes to show the double standards. The British are expecting Russia to adhere to international law and norms, while turning a blind eye to the DUP sticking two fingers up at it for their own electoral purposes.
Given that Downing Street is sticking firmly to the position that whether to obey the law or not is a personal choice for the Prime Minister, they can hardly argue that Poots is obliged to obey it.
So is the UK effectively ceding control of the matter to NI? A NI that voted to remain in the EU?
This was always likely to happen. The DUP were always going to invoke A16 if the UK government continued to refuse to do it themselves.
And as a short term tactic it has merits. If the EU do nothing, then the argument will be made that the checks were never necessary in the 1st place. If the EU act to stop it then it is moving a hard border ever closer, which people can blame on the EU.
Medium to long term it is a terrible strategy of course, but Johnson is iiving day to day and the DUP only care about surviving the next election at this point, so medium and long term is not being considered.
Reports this morning that Paul Givan is expected to quit over brexit.
Elections coming early for the North...EDIT: or maybe not, looks like they have 6 weeks to nominate replacements.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/03/northern-ireland-first-minister-poised-to-quit-over-brexit-reports-say
Given that this is just an election stunt, what is the political benefit of this?
BBC NI's Gareth Gordon said today that the Stormont 3 year budget can't be passed if the First Minister resigns. Political editor Enda McClafferty told Talkback earlier that he's hearing rumours of an early election, possibly the second week of March. Looks like the DUP are banking on all this chaos to lure votes away from the TUV.
Checks are still continuing for the time being:
At the moment (well, before today at least) the DUP were stuck between a rock and a hard place. For moderates, they are unpalatable for a number of reasons, one of which being their push for brexit when it was clear it was not in the best interests of NI. These people also don't forget RHI etc. For hard-liners, they are seen as a weak party doing nothing to ditch the protocol.
They're doubling down on their anti-protocol agenda to try cement their position with hard liners.
You also need to factor in that it's highly likely that after the next election SF will be the largest party, and the DUP could lose some key ministries. If the protocol is still in place and SF become the major party then it's here to stay.
It's a last, desperate roll of the dice.
I can't see this stunt being enough to halt the draining of votes to the UUP/Alliance on one hand, and to the TUV on the other.
I also find it difficult to imagine the DUP operating an executive in which they are not the majority party.
As ever you'd have to wonder what, if any, internal polling is telling the DUP that they feel confident in pulling stunts that must surely alienate the ideological centrists or those not so blinded as to risk a gift horse like the Protocol. If not, it's a huge gamble that fear of the other crowd is enough to guarantee the vote in precarious constituencies. Either way, their behaviour is a stain on democracy in the North TBH.
This is what NI politics is.
DUP election campaigns have always been about stopping the other crowd. Always.
Oh I agree, but if they're not 100% sure that fear still works, the tactic will eventually fail. And when it does, will they accept a nationalist majority Executive gracefully? Current behaviour says: not bloody likely.
Bloody being the operative word...
