Ben Lowry: Unionism needs help, not a Neutral Ireland Office (NIO)
View email online | | | | | | | | | | | Oct 29, 2022 | | | | | | | | Good evening When you are as far north in the northern hemisphere as Northern Ireland, it can be challenging at this time of year, if the dwindling light is accompanied by grey skies and wet weather. Tomorrow the clocks go back, and sunset will come even earlier. We all want to be warm in such weather. I had to fill up oil at home on Thursday, and it was a bit cheaper than it would have been a week before, reflecting the fall reported in this story: https://www.newsletter.co.uk/business/consumer/cost-of-living/steep-fall-in-cost-of-home-heating-oil-in-northern-ireland-slight-rise-in-price-of-petrol-diesel-cost-on-increase-again-3896225 The political and economic situation here is challenging too, not just the climate. Peter Robinson this week issued a rallying call to the DUP he once led to ''stand firm' as election deadline looms https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/peter-robinsons-rallying-call-for-dup-to-stand-firm-as-election-deadline-looms-3895044 That was significant because Mr Robinson was a highly pragmatic, rather than dogmatic, politician. At midday yesterday (Friday) on broadcasts on Sky and then BBC, I wondered aloud if the government was not as expected going to call a poll that day, perhaps because it was unsure how to proceed. It is always perilous making such predictions, because you can be embarrassingly contradicted minutes later. But in the end a decision was not made. This week the government had been slow to rule out Joint Authority shared with UK and Ireland over running Northern Ireland, but finally did so https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/joint-authority-northern-ireland-nio-minister-speaks-out-to-make-clear-that-joint-authority-is-fundamentally-inconsistent-with-the-good-friday-agreement-3896951 In my column today I write about how this was the latest example of the UK seeming to be neutral in its approach to NI when Irish politicians are becoming increasingly nationalist: https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/ben-lowry-unionism-needs-help-not-a-neutral-ireland-office-nio-3898206 Meanwhile, the Loyalist Communities Council has been criticised for its statement about joint authority: https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/loyalist-communities-council-statement-calls-for-calm-after-sinn-fein-joint-authority-demand-3892563 --
Ben Lowry Editor | |
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