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![]() Sam McbrideiNews |
Tomorrow, MPs will vote for the first time on the legislation which would shred most of the Northern Ireland Protocol. In the debate which precedes...
Five months ago on a Friday afternoon, something extraordinary happened in Northern Ireland’s most dysfunctional council. Even by the standards of...
In the long and bloody centuries of sectarian conflict in the northeast of this island, the history books can ascribe entire towns to one side or the...
We now take for granted that what is said in Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly is freely available to read or watch. It was not always thus....
The legislation published yesterday would mutilate the NI Protocol in more substantive ways than opponents of the Irish Sea border could scarcely have...
The legislation published yesterday would mutilate the NI Protocol in more substantive ways than opponents of the Irish Sea border could scarcely have...
Not known for his forensic attention to detail, Boris Johnson is to have been closely following events in the Queen’s Bench Division of the High...
On the evening of March 29, a senior Stormont official received a highly unusual order from DUP minister Edwin Poots. The written message was...
Political lies are as old as the practice of politics. Otto von Bismarck, the man who unified Germany, once observed that “people never lie so much...
Those who follow the generations now alive may one day observe that we lived in certainty’s dying years. In the space of six years, the UK has...
Whether towards light or darkness, leaders lead. When a nation accepts debauched leadership, as is happening in Britain now, the scandal ends not at...
Dervla Murphy, who died this week at the grand age of 90, was celebrated for books like Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle and In Ethiopia...
In an interview with US public broadcaster C-Span 16 years ago, Richard Neal said that he would like to be seen as an honest broker in Northern...
There was a way for Boris Johnson to make much of the Irish Sea border vanish in far smarter and less rancorous circumstances than now exist, but it...
No party has grown more in the 24 years since the Good Friday Agreement than Alliance — and yet it was the Agreement which almost killed the party. ...
No party has grown more in the 24 years since the Good Friday Agreement than Alliance — and yet it was the Agreement which almost killed the party. ...
No party has grown more in the 24 years since the Good Friday Agreement than Alliance — and yet it was the Agreement which almost killed the party. ...
If this was a government whose word was its bond, what Liz Truss set out in Parliament today would be dramatic. It would represent the UK deciding to...
If what Boris Johnson is doing on the Northern Ireland Protocol is reckless, then it seems to be recklessness in moderation. That is uncharacteristic...
It’s possible to win and lose simultaneously. The DUP spectacularly demonstrated this by securing the Brexit of which it dreamed, but thereby...
As swathes of the NI Protocol are perhaps about to be torn up, new light has been shed on how this document came about — and that light may...
Many people will be watching the DUP on Friday to see if it nominates ministers to re-enter the Executive. Almost certainly, it will not. But that’s...
It is understandable that Jim Allister is feeling hard done by, returning to Stormont alone despite taking almost 66,000 votes across Northern...
How much do unionists really care about the Northern Ireland Protocol? The answer to that question will hinge on whether devolved government returns...
After the weekend’s dramatic election results, events are moving quickly, giving political leaders little time to make major decisions. Five...
More than half a century after Terence O’Neill, the prime minister of a dying Stormont, said that Northern Ireland stood at the crossroads, another...
Unionism has moved decisively to the right, ignoring the DUP’s warnings about a Sinn Fein first minister to vote in greater numbers than ever before...
Unionism has moved decisively to the right, ignoring the DUP’s warnings about a Sinn Fein first minister to vote in greater numbers than ever before...
What causes someone to put themselves forward for election? Ego, money or power, many of the public would say, reflecting the widespread disrepute in...
As the final act in an overwhelmingly forgettable election campaign, Tuesday night’s BBC debate was the first time where the party leaders really...
Those most deeply immersed in politics can lose sight of the big picture. In this online age, change is incessant and those most politicised are most...
A simple flaw in the format meant that tonight’s UTV debate, as has been the case for years, failed to adequately explore the positions of...
There can’t be a system of government in which it matters less who wins and who comes second than in Northern Ireland. The first and deputy first...
When you open this newspaper a week from today, the votes will be counted, and debate will centre not on who will be in government at Stormont, but on...
The first thing you notice about Sinn Fein’s manifesto is that it’s much flimsier than those of rival parties. At 20 pages, it’s half the length...
The first thing you notice about Sinn Fein’s manifesto is that it’s much flimsier than those of rival parties. At 20 pages, it’s half the length...
Imagine refusing the clear instruction of your boss, who specifies that he doesn’t want you to do something you know to be right. Imagine then...
Away from the Orange and Green arguments about the Irish Sea border, Whitehall emails and documentation leaked to the Belfast Telegraph show the...
From the first words in the Green Party manifesto — “we are in Code Red for humanity” – this is a document suffused with the argument that the...
Four weeks from today, the votes will be counted, and we will know whether a political party which does not want Northern Ireland to exist is its...
As anyone who has started a diet or made a New Year’s resolution will know, deciding what you want to do is no guarantee of achieving that goal....
Michelle O’Neill’s response to a question on Irish unity on Tuesday was verging on the Augustinian: give me a border poll, but just not yet....
Michelle O’Neill’s response to a question on Irish unity on Tuesday was verging on the Augustinian: give me a border poll, but just not yet....
Launching the DUP’s Assembly election campaign in a Dundonald cinema, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson described it gravely as “one of the most...
Launching the DUP’s Assembly election campaign in a Dundonald cinema, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson described it gravely as “one of the most...
Launching the DUP’s Assembly election campaign in a Dundonald cinema, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson described it gravely as “one of the most...
Launching the DUP’s Assembly election campaign in a Dundonald cinema, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson described it gravely as “one of the most consequential...
So if, as Winston Churchill observed, success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm, then the Good Friday...