Boris Johnson is gradually being forced to reveal the outline of his Brexit plan. In as much as anything the Tory front-runner says can be taken at face value, he envisages a fresh consensus on sorting out the border during the transition period, with that period extended by a year to the last day of 2021.
This is the so-called ‘Malthouse Compromise’, rejected by the EU but officially the DUP’s favoured option.
However, apart from fudging the backstop, this is still Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement in structure and detail, right down to that one-year extension. So all Johnson is really promising is to cajole the same deal through parliament by deploying his questionable charms.
As for his view on what would sort out the border, it should be remembered Johnson backed “some minimal” form of a sea border as foreign secretary, in a memo leaked last year. That is most definitely not the DUP’s favoured option.
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Last week, Tanaiste Simon Coveney said the “mood music” at Stormont talks was the best it had been in two years. This week talks have hit such a wall that both governments have considered parking them for the summer. Aside from the deadlocked agenda itself, Sinn Féin is apparently frozen in the headlights after recent electoral setbacks and needs a few months off to reassess its strategic direction.
It is quite an achievement to get yourself into a position where you are doing nothing and still have too many plates in the air.
There was grandstanding petulance from all parties on Tuesday when they boycotted an assembly members’ drinks reception, to be hosted by Karen Bradley, in protest at her disastrous performance as secretary of state.
Nobody was expected to spent the whole evening supping champagne with Bradley in person. After two and half years without the casual encounters that lubricate political partnership, a precious opportunity for MLAs to get together was squandered for no good reason.
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One sure sign Sinn Féin has lost its way is a return to taunting unionists that the rest of the UK does not want them, throwing republican principles and the Good Friday Agreement out of the window.
The party has seized on a survey showing a majority of Conservative members would be willing to see Northern Ireland leave the UK to secure Brexit.
“When even 59 per cent of Tory party members support Irish unity, it’s time for a referendum!” a Sinn Féin statement declared.
Another statement in the name of former minister John O’Dowd said “with such overwhelming support for reunification within the self-declared conservative and unionist party, it is obviously time to begin preparing for an Irish unity referendum.”
The mechanism for this is far from obvious. Of the 160,000 Conservative members, only the views of the 450 living here have any bearing on a border poll.
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Everyone in Northern Ireland who has ever worked overtime could be in line for backdated holiday pay, following a court case brought by PSNI officers and staff.
Delivering this across the public and private sectors would wreck Stormont’s budget and might also require new legislation, so any realistic effort to make payouts could be held up by the absence of devolution. There would be a delicious symmetry in vast numbers of people being offered a windfall if Stormont returned, while MLAs are having their pay cut to encourage its return.
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Council reorganisation has not reduced staff abstentionism. In fact it is getting worse, with an Audit Office report finding figures have risen to the worst in the UK. The average council employee in Northern Ireland now takes three weeks off per year.
The highest figure, at 17 days per year, as at Newry, Mourne and Down District Council, which says it “continues to work with recognised trade unions” to address the problem. Perhaps that is the problem. Unions persistently refuse to accept the absence figures reflect anything other than an implausible health emergency.
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The leaking of civil service emails to journalists by senior DUP figures during the RHI scandal is to be the subject of a criminal investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). An organisation representing RHI claimants has pressed for the action after the ICO initially declined to proceed.
Following the arrest of journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey, there might be some alarm at officialdom once again treating leaks as a crime. However, any comparison would be misleading. Police in that case wrongly portrayed leaking as ‘theft’. In this instance, there are actual offences of data protection to consider, although none attract more than a fine or require police involvement.
The ICO is also most unlikely to send 100 officers out at dawn to raid people’s homes.
newton@irishnews.com
