Brexit Impact on Northern Ireland

Too much entertainment tbh. The twisting snd turning is done with some aplomb, I have to give him that much.

Bryson will have to kick and scream from afar as he seems to have outlived his usefulness and been pushed away from the DUP.

It will indeed be fascinating to see what Dodds, Wilson, Paisley etc do if Jeffrey capitulates on the 7 tests/Acts of Union/Sea border etc..

Maybe Jeffrey was playing th'oul 4d chess after all. In which case the strategy was this - drag it out for as long as possible, getting the tiniest concessions, until his own voters get the message that no more will be forthcoming and to hold out for anything more means blocking the Assembly indefinitely. They are seeing the effects of no Assembly now, and given the choice between the effects of no Assembly, and rigidly sticking to the principles, they've decided to let it slide.

And now that the voters have understood this, he can go back into the assembly without risking any great losses to the TUV. The few billion from the British government will also help.

In a way, it's reminiscent of the Boris Johnson playbook which was to do nothing for as long as possible until, in the end, there was only one course of action left.

3.3 billion on the table. Talks 'over' according to Chris Heaton-Harris.

What's happens next is anyone's guess.

Jeffrey continues to maneuver into position to climb down.

It's a fair point of criticism. Had the british been honest maybe Unionists would not have been so easily fooled by the DUP that 'progress was been made'.

Basically we are arriving into another bung station and the DUP will try use that to cover their blushes.

It was never the case that Donaldson or anyone from the DUP was ever going to be deputy to Michelle O'Neill. This was never going to happen.

The DUP can come up with every Brexit excuse under the sun, but this was always the underlying issue.

I would like to have both your cakes and my own cake and eat them all vibes

Have there been any opinion polls recently? Last one I can see is from October where the DUP were at 28%. If they can maintain that kind of number I can't see them going back. If they were to take a hit on that though that would surely sharpen minds. Now that 150k public sector workers realise that their wages are tied to Stormont resuming that may translate to the polls.

They might be able to try play that as a win to a certain type of fleg-hugger in their core vote base. Allister will never be happy with anything they do, and isn't great at convincing enough people to vote for him so he's not the threat he thinks he is

Prof Katy Hayward wrote:

"At root, DUP demands to be asked for their ‘consent’ are a quest for more security in an increasingly uncertain context for unionists. This relates both to its protest at the UK-EU Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland (which introduced new post-Brexit trading rules and practices between Northern Ireland and Great Britain) and to concerns as to the significance of a nationalist party being the largest in the Assembly.

Indeed that latter point may explain why not only strong unionists (88%) but also a significant portion of softer unionists (37%) disagree that the Assembly should be fully-functioning even now the UK has secured adjustments to the Protocol via the Windsor Framework. The wariness of that cohort of strong, anti-Windsor Framework unionists cannot be ignored. It stands at about 30% of the active electorate, even as Northern Ireland society is becoming less unionist as a whole.

In making a decision about a return to Stormont, the DUP wants to keep as much of that strong unionist support, while recognising that functioning devolution is necessary to keep NI in the Union longer term. The intensity of this conundrum helps explain the reluctance of the DUP leadership to make a decision, or even to accept the Secretary of State’s assertion that their side-talks have come to an end."

He can defer them. And I think he has.

Not sure what it would achieve to have another election.

What really needs to happen is to stop pandering to the DUP and for the British and Irish governments to convene under the auspices of the GFA and agree proper reforms that can be put to the parties that have signed up to the GFA.

The very idea that a single political party are in 'secret' meetings bartering with the futures of all the people of NI is not sustainable. The Irish government should be calling this out.

If they somehow come out on top as the largest party, then they don’t need to work under a Nationalist FM. In that case, running a fresh election could give them what they want, but they’d probably disguise it as “the people have spoken so let’s get on with it”.