Displaying items by tag: Northern Ireland

Boris Johnson has attacked Rishi Sunak’s post-Brexit deal with the EU to resolve the Northern Ireland Protocol row, claiming that it doesn’t take back control from Brussels. The former PM is urging Sunak to consider using his bill to unilaterally override the protocol if it ‘doesn’t work’. He added, ‘I will find it very difficult to vote for something like this because I believe we should have done things differently no matter how much plaster came off the Brussels ceiling. We have got to hope it works.’ Boris said he understood why people want to move on from Brexit rows and accept the deal: ‘I get that.’ Meanwhile, the European Research Group said it could take two weeks for the Brexiteer group to carry out its own ‘legal audit’ of the deal. Mr Sunak wants to give the DUP and Tory Eurosceptics space and time to consider the deal before holding the commons vote.

The Northern Ireland protocol was agreed to ensure free movement of trade across the Irish land border after Brexit. The legal text is now being looked at to nail down details. However, some are concerned that there are still things to square off to ensure an agreement is sellable to EU member states: the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and some Tory MPs who continue to insist that there remains more work to do. Pray for the language surrounding the talks to be increasingly positive. Also farms risk going out of business. The UK has replaced EU’s subsidies to farmers with ‘payments for public goods’ (SFI). Each year ministers cut how much farmers get paid under the old scheme while they introduce new ones. Farmers’ subsidies were cut by 22% last year, but only 0.44% of the promised budget was spent on SFI. So where is the money going?

Nine men appeared in court by video link charged with possessing offensive weapons. Police believe they had prevented a ‘serious disorder’ after discovering a sword, machetes, and a hatchet in vans in Newtownabbey. The men, aged between 18 and 41, were travelling to a relative's funeral; police were concerned over what they were going to do. In addition to possessing offensive weapons, Brian James Bradley is also charged with driving while disqualified, without insurance, and possessing a Class B drug. The judge refused bail as details provided by police ‘paint a picture of an organised, premeditated operation involving extremely dangerous weapons’ and ‘clear inference that extreme violence was going to be visited on persons unknown’. The case has been adjourned until 27 February.

In 12 months, there has been an 184% increase of children having to wait over four years on consultant waiting lists and waits are longer for children needing help with mental health issues, speech and language therapy and autism assessments. The situation is ‘alarming’. Many of the children could be ‘experiencing pain and discomfort’. Parents' hearts are breaking as they watch their children miss out on vital parts of childhood while struggling to manage health conditions. Waiting lists for ear, nose and throat conditions are the longest. 10,000 children are waiting for a consultant-led outpatient appointment and 4,000 for surgery. In order to tackle the problem trusts are asked to provide additional theatre space, and paediatric surgeons from the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children will travel to other hospitals to perform children's surgery. Commissioned paediatric day case procedure theatre lists for general surgery are being re-established as a priority.

Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern have been working behind the scenes to get the UK and EU back to the negotiating table over Brexit and the Stormont government collapse. Hard Brexiter Steve Baker has been transferred to the Northern Ireland office, replacing Conor Burns, who went to the Department for International Trade. UK-EU protocol talks were paused when Russia invaded Ukraine. The already strained relations deteriorated further in June when Liz Truss introduced a bill enabling the UK to remove some Northern Ireland Brexit protocol. Hopes of a thaw in UK-EU relations have been fuelled by the absence of Lord Frost from Truss’s new cabinet. Burns met Europe’s Marcus Šefčovič at the weekend and had ‘constructive and prolonged talks’. He told MPs, ‘I am convinced that if the appetite exists, we can find a way to a negotiated solution to the Northern Ireland protocol.’ 

On 3 August thirty police officers and immigration officials raided two properties and detained a 40-year-old woman and a 26-year-old man, both originally from Somalia, on suspicion of offences linked to people-smuggling. The pair have lived in Northern Ireland for ten years; authorities believe they are part of an operation being run by an organised crime gang transporting people into the UK. Officers also searched the addresses for cash. Immigration officials say that individuals can pay gangs between £2,500 and £15,000 to be brought into the UK, often exploiting the Common Travel Area with the Republic of Ireland. Priti Patel said the operation showed expertly-trained officers working tirelessly to keep our country safe by disrupting suspected criminal activity. An immigration enforcement officer said this was just one of the ways they worked with the police to act against people-smuggling.

France and Germany are pressuring Brussels to take the hardest possible line towards the next Tory leader over the Northern Ireland Protocol. Both Tory leadership candidates have pledged to press ahead and scrap goods checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Brussels says the Northern Ireland Protocol bill is illegal and will retaliate with lawsuits and import tariffs to strategic UK exports. Senior EU sources said the bloc would prefer to restart talks with a fresh face rather than Liz Truss, who has been running the negotiations. Ms Truss initially adopted a conciliatory approach after taking over as the UK’s chief negotiator from combative Lord Frost. But her position has hardened recently as she became frustrated at the lack of movement in the talks. EU insiders believe she dropped her friendly approach when it became clear that Boris could be ousted over partygate.

Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, has warned Boris Johnson against any move to change the Northern Ireland protocol. He said, ‘What we can’t do is accept that the British government would act unilaterally, they would pass legislation to effectively breach international law, to set aside elements of a treaty that this prime minister designed and put in place. That would cause more problems than it would solve.’  Foreign minister Liz Truss, announcing a new law to change the post-Brexit trade deal for Northern Ireland, insisted it would be legal under international law. She said the proposed legislation would make changes to the deal - rather than scrapping it - to resolve ‘the grave situation in Northern Ireland’. But in response, the EU said it would ‘need to respond with all measures at its disposal’ if the UK went ahead with the legislation. Pray that all decisions will be according to God’s plans.

The attorney general has been advised that it would be lawful to override parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol, the post-Brexit arrangement which requires some checks on goods between Britain and NI. This angers both Unionists and the EU. There has been no power-sharing executive for several months after the DUP withdrew in protest against the protocol. In the recent election Sinn Féin, whose goal is for NI to become one country with the Republic of Ireland, won the most seats and needs to form a government. It cannot take up the office unless the DUP nominates a deputy first minister. The DUP's leader said his party would respect the election result, but changes needed to be made to the protocol. Boris Johnson has said the most important treaty is the Good Friday Agreement, which established a cross-community power-sharing government to end decades of violence. 

A County Antrim GP practice will only be able to open a branch clinic two half days a week because of a Department of Health (DoH) funding cut. The practice can no longer cover the costs of a full-time service which opened in 2017 to take 1,400 new patients. DoH said additional payments between 2017 and 2021 were temporary, ‘to support the practice for a period of three years to enable them to manage the registration and complete an initial clinical review of these additional patients.’ Dr John McSparran, from the practice, disagrees vehemently. ‘We were never under the impression it was for three years, otherwise we would never have entered the agreement in the first place. We've tried to address this, continuing the service at our own cost. But financially the practice is unviable and can no longer cover the costs of a full-time service.’