Brexit Impact on Northern Ireland

He has already said that about public pay. As for joint authority, even Alloance are very clear it cannot happen. Roi involvement is clearly outlined in Belfast agreement.

anyhow it is looking like we are heading back to Stormont next week.

the OP, Brexit impact on ni. If (and I don’t know) this is true then it has a big stabilising effect on NI and definitely reduces the Brexit impact on ni.

if true then this was certainly worth the 2 years out of Stormont. Never mind the £3b etc etc.

tbh the biggest concern was the out of control nature of increasing gb divergence creating a more significant trade border This would be reassuring, if true

It will be strange if true as most have been disagreeing with Donaldson that the talks were ongoing.

rumour has it that something is coming from EU as well.

They may not. And, not to be offensive, but you have a bit of a track record in this thread of hailing rumours as heralding a great victory, and the rumours turn out to be not entirely true.

You need to bear in mind that somebody is circulating this rumour for a purpose. The newspaper article is paywalled to me, but I note that it's in the Telegraph, which tells me that this rumour most likely comes from someone high up on the Tory right. The "sacrifice Brexit freedoms" language tends to reinforce this suspicion. So, you ask yourself, why would someone high up on the Tory right be circulating this rumour?

I see two possibilities. One, this is someone who is opposed to Sunak and wishes to undermine him, so they promote a rumour that he is about to sell out Brexit freedoms. On social media we've already got the usual suspects saying that this proves that the WF was, all along, a sinister EU plot to ensnare the UK and subjugate it to the EUSSR jackboot, etc, etc, so this is a well-trodden path.

The other is that this is from someone close to Sunak who is trying to create space for the DUP to go back into the assembly by "bigging up" whatever measures Heaton-Harris has offered the DUP.

On either of these views, GB's impending tilt towards closer alignment with the EU may in fact be quite modest, but is being sold for political reasons as major. I'd wait for the details of the governments intentions to be made public before either hailing this as a victory or dismissing it as a marginal tweak. You can assume that the leak is an attempt to manipulate you, and in general you should resist such attempts.

play the ball not the man.

Brexit is bad for ni. On that we agree.

I wish Brexit had not happened and I remain angry with the DUP (and others) for sleeping at the wheel and supporting this.

I am though very glad that the unionist people have held their feet to the fire, against the advice of apparently everyone.

you seem angry in your post, but just to be clear, I repeatedly said IF in my post, as I believe this is too good to be true. The report says that many in Rishis party are very angry about this move. That’s quite an achievement. Better late than never.

It’s big money to ni. That’s like somebody giving the island a £12billion bonus on top of the annual £50billion+.

but you are right that it’s not that much to the uk - exactly why there remains few who would vote to leave the uk.

That’s the TUV you are referring to. No one else believes that, and they are tiny