It is a long way down the road but I see that Macron is putting forward the idea of a “parallel” European community for, as I understand it, facilitation on economic, defence and certain policy issues, so perhaps something more than the EC, but without the deeper integration of the EU. He seems to be thinking of Ukraine and other countries who are waiting to join the EU but has said countries who have left could also be part of this. Perhaps this will provide the new solution to the NI issue.
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Remember that NI did not vote for Brexit.
As I said this is exactly what they had pre Brexit and the status quo was altered against their express will. Why should they not want what they had previously?
I’m not entirely sure I’d call Owen Jones “[Starmer’s] own side”.
It’s a high risk strategy but Starmer is likely to be pretty sure of the evidence that he can present that it was a work meeting and if exonerated (as seems likely) he can renew calls for Johnson to go.
If, however, this goes against him Johnson will laugh in his face and call for his resignation - it will not make Johnson even slightly more likely to resign himself.
And, given that the motivation for the investigation, and re-investigation, is clearly political there is always a danger that Durham police will reach a conclusion based not on facts, but what they have been told to do.
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I absolutely understand why they want it.
What is harder to sympathise with is their flat refusal to accept that things have changed. Not everybody can alway get what they want, there has to be compromise, so why does NI seems to think that this does not apply to them? Other parts of the UK also did not vote for Brexit but understand that they cannot refuse the changes it has brought.
I would remind you that the majority in NI are in favour of the NIP - it’s only the Unionists, principally the DUP that are shit stirring.
And NI has lost more than just a frictionless link with the UK - in losing EU membership it has lost the foundation stone of peace in the province - which is a pretty big loss to chalk up to “things change”
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No but it might make some voters and some Tories think harder about how leaders in a democracy should behave.
It is possible that Starmer would be instantly re-elected, as happened in NL a while back when the Dutch government took responsibility for an incident of maladministration and resigned en bloc, and were voted back in en bloc. That is the point of resigning, not to go off in a huff and bury yourself in a hole but to give the relevant electorate the chance to decide whether they still have confidence in you or not. Johnson’s fault is that he has decided he still has confidence in himself therefore he will continue, that is not how democracy should work.
Plus, a leadership contest in the Labour party at this point may not be an altogether bad thing in any case, either to give Starmer a clearer mandate or to replace him.
Yes you are right, I suppose that when I said “NI” I was thinking of the DUP specifically.
But the Protocol has been carefully designed to be a substitute foundation stone of peace. Of course it is far from ideal and I do not know enough about it to have an objective opinion, but Ireland thinks it can work, the EU thinks it can be made to work, and many in NI think it can be made to work.
The problem is that I don’t think that it will.
However a GE is in Johnson’s gift and he could call one - using the resignation against Labour (conveniently ignoring, of course, his own transgressions).
As long as the press is behind him Johnson will be able to fling mud and have it stick way more effectively than Labour can.
Phil Moorhouse has a view on that…
You are probably right because it seems to have been instilled into UK voters that resignation is by definition dishonourable. There seems to be no recognition that there is nothing intrinsically dishonourable about resigning, it can happen for many reasons and in some circumstances it is the correct and honourable way forward.
The entire French government traditionally resigns following the election of a new President. There is nothing dishonourable about that and many of them expect to be reappointed. I think it is simply recognition that there have been changes and as such it is appropriate to reconsider whether they are still the best people for the new situation. As opposed to, clinging on to power and not giving people the opportunity to say, Actually you are no longer the right person for the job…
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Comment seen on Twitter:
Bloody true as well.
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Another Guardian article today (Divided States of America: Roe v Wade is ‘precursor to larger struggles’) reminded me of the ‘Jesusland Map’ that was all over the internet after Bush’s 2004 election…
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I’m don’t have much time for Jones, in fact I rarely read his stuff. Surely a Corbynista at heart?
After the 2016 result , every post I wrote, anywhere, on Brexit and the NI impact advocated work should immediately start on new border infrastructure between NI and the South. That would have called the UK’s bluff on so many issues. Without it , anybody with any knowledge of perfidious Albion and the Unionist headbangers, could have predicted this is where it would end up. Better a hard border, because 100 years of both flavours of unionist and nationalist bullshit is enough. Now we have a handful of bowler hatted throwbacks trying to hold 450,000,000 europeans to ransom, because they are worth it? I don’t think so. Meanwhile the liar Johnson is stirring it for personal gain. It’s time to end all this, temporarily painful as it may be.
To be honest a dose of harsh reality would do both flavours up North good.
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Well, the ‘leave’ campaign never, ever put forward the idea of a ‘hard’ brexit. The official campaign promised that the UK would stay in the EEA at least (ie. effectively in the European single market and customs union) and most prominent leave campaigners emphasised this (eg. David Davis’ famous statement that UK-EU trade would continue ‘on exactly the same terms’.
Of course they were all right-wing know-nothings - but nevertheless it was this proposition that the public voted on in 2016. Nobody voted for a hard brexit or a hard border in Ireland. The mess we have now came purely out of the internal convolutions of the Tory Party and DUP over 2017-21. Object lesson in unintended consequences - and although there are always some people that deserve a dose of harsh reality, worst hit would be the thousands of decent people - mostly probably remain voters - that commute across the border daily, or have other regular cross-border commitments.
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Phil Moorhouse has given a good narrative on this today (11/5/22)
I know, I know. I promised not to post so much UK political stuff.
But, this is Gove, on TV FFS. I can only assume that he is high on something.
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When is he not? At some point that man is going to have the most epic comedown of all time, it’s quite incredible that all the world’s iconic rockstars may well have been bested in the 
stakes by a man who looks like Mr Bean in spectacles with less personality than a piece of slightly damp cardboard.
Sorry, those were the best emoji’s I could find, but it reminded me of the early days of a members club in Soho where all the salt & pepper shakers were not for seasoning your food, and there was always a rush to stop newbies from putting the sugar in their tea… 
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Quite extraordinary he can get away with it, how blatant does he have to be before he is called out on it?
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