For stormont to get back up and running you’d need a new election and for dup to win the first minister position.
The author is unsurprisingly ignorant of Northern Ireland.
>except to hope Sinn Féin (its name means ‘ourselves alone’), a party which used to regard the Westminster government as an occupying power in Ireland
Sinn Féin still regards the Westminster government as an occupying power in Ireland.
>The UK government itself places huge emphasis on getting the Stormont executive up and running, so much so that it is prepared to break international law to do so. Nothing is more important.
The Tories couldn’t care less about Stormont or Northern Ireland other than as a stick to beat the EU with and extract some concessions.
Sinn Fein would not be so foolish as to withdraw from the Executive “because we hate the protocol Bill”. Using the exact opposite strategy as the DUP would open them to the same ridicule and electoral defeat as the DUP.
What Sinn Fein would withdraw over is the fundamental breach of the Good Friday Agreement which must result if this Bill becomes law. The GFA commits to the dismantling of security at the border between the two parts of Ireland and that’s simply not possible if customs checkpoints are needed.
I think there’s a way in which SF can frame the same objection as more substantive than the objection of the DUP that they don’t like being governed by laws decided elsewhere, something which has always been the case and is inherent in the existence of Northern Ireland.
3 comments
For stormont to get back up and running you’d need a new election and for dup to win the first minister position.
The author is unsurprisingly ignorant of Northern Ireland.
>except to hope Sinn Féin (its name means ‘ourselves alone’), a party which used to regard the Westminster government as an occupying power in Ireland
Sinn Féin still regards the Westminster government as an occupying power in Ireland.
>The UK government itself places huge emphasis on getting the Stormont executive up and running, so much so that it is prepared to break international law to do so. Nothing is more important.
The Tories couldn’t care less about Stormont or Northern Ireland other than as a stick to beat the EU with and extract some concessions.
Sinn Fein would not be so foolish as to withdraw from the Executive “because we hate the protocol Bill”. Using the exact opposite strategy as the DUP would open them to the same ridicule and electoral defeat as the DUP.
What Sinn Fein would withdraw over is the fundamental breach of the Good Friday Agreement which must result if this Bill becomes law. The GFA commits to the dismantling of security at the border between the two parts of Ireland and that’s simply not possible if customs checkpoints are needed.
I think there’s a way in which SF can frame the same objection as more substantive than the objection of the DUP that they don’t like being governed by laws decided elsewhere, something which has always been the case and is inherent in the existence of Northern Ireland.