Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Philip Rycroft says PM’s ‘muscular brand of unionism’ has deepened divisions between four nations
The pandemic has seeded the idea of a prime minister “who speaks for England alone” as relations between the four nations of the UK deteriorate amid “deep-rooted complacency”, a senior former civil servant has warned.
There is widespread ignorance towards the union, meaning ministers can be kept in the dark about major reforms with little consideration for the four nations, Philip Rycroft, the permanent secretary to the Brexit department until 2019, says in a report.
Chief constable briefs party leaders after political crisis intensified by another night of riots in Belfast
Northern Ireland’s power-sharing executive is holding an emergency meeting in Stormont after another night of riots scarred parts of Belfast and ratcheted up a political crisis.
Simon Byrne, the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, briefed party leaders on the security situation on Thursday before a debate at the assembly, which has been recalled from its Easter break.
Analysis: Brexit terms and handling of funeral seen as latest in a litany of perceived or real concessions
A Sinn Féin funeral was the spark but loyalists in Northern Ireland have been throwing petrol bombs and burning cars partly because they fear political marginalisation.
The union flag no longer flutters daily over Belfast city hall, a trade border separates the region from the rest of the UK and the police are allegedly beholden to Sinn Féin. Add to this a criminal gang’s resentment at recent arrests and you have the context for three consecutive nights of rioting in several towns that have left dozens of police officers injured, including five on Sunday night.
Business leaders buoyed by meeting with Michael Gove and EU counterpart on protocol glitches
Business leaders in Northern Ireland are optimistic that Brexit barriers preventing parcels, pets, potatoes and plants getting to the region from Britain will be eased after a meeting between Michael Gove and his EU counterpart, Maroš Šefčovič, on Thursday.
They said the UK and the EU had a legitimate reason to remove or ease the barriers because they were having an impact on daily lives, in breach of a pledge in the Northern Ireland protocol that states the “application of this protocol should impact as little as possible on the everyday life of communities in both Ireland and Northern Ireland”.
Exclusive: government accused of failing to ensure access more than a year after terminations legalised
Northern Ireland’s human rights commission (NIHRC) has launched a landmark legal action against the UK government for its failure to commission safe and accessible abortion services more than a year after abortion was made legal in the country, the Guardian can reveal.
The Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, is accused of unlawfully denying the rights of women in the country, who experts warn are being forced to use unregulated services and to travel to high-risk areas during the pandemic. The NIHRC is also taking action against the Northern Ireland Executive and the country’s Department of Health.
Boris Johnson’s “four nations” approach to tackling the coronavirus has been dealt a fresh blow after the government of Northern Ireland joined those of Scotland and Wales in rejecting the “stay alert” slogan, and announcing its own plans for easing the lockdown.
The prime minister sought to play down the differences in approaches on Monday, stressing in the Plan to Rebuild that people should “pull together as a United Kingdom”. But Edinburgh, Cardiff and now Belfast have chosen to develop their own plans.
Clashes expected over plan which Britain says would sow division in Northern Ireland
Brussels and UK officials will clash over the increasingly fraught question of whether the European Union can open an office in Belfast.
At the inaugural meeting on Thursday of a special committee of officials charged with enforcing a de facto Irish Sea border, the European commission is expected to press the case to open “a technical office” in Belfast, three days after the government rejected an EU “mini-embassy” in the Northern Irish capital.
Damning verdict expected on civil servants and politicians including Arlene Foster
Northern Ireland’s cash-for-ash scandal started almost a decade ago as a way to save the planet, veered into greed, cronyism and dysfunction, and will now reach a denouement in the place where it all started: Stormont.
Sir Patrick Coghlin, chairman of the public inquiry into the region’s bungled green energy scheme, is due to publish his report on Friday at the grand estate outside Belfast that hosts the devolved government’s assembly and executive.
Emmett McConomy, whose 11-year-old brother died in 1982, said cases ‘not going away’
A man whose 11-year-old brother was killed by a soldier in Northern Ireland nearly 40 years ago has warned that victims’ families “were not going to go away” if the British government tried to introduce an amnesty for military personnel.
Emmett McConomy, whose older brother Stephen was shot in the back of the head with a plastic bullet, said the new Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, needed to understand the strength of feeling among families who had not yet seen cases involving British soldiers come to court.
Sinn Féin won the most first-preference votes in Saturday’s Irish general election, delivering a shock to the country’s political landscape after decades of domination by the centrist rivals Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
However, the fragmented results will produce a hung parliament with no party close to 80 seats, meaning there could be weeks – possibly months – of negotiations between party leaders before a government is formed.
Follow all today’s political developments as they happen
There were various news lines in that interview, but perhaps the most surprising line came when Johnson announced that he wanted to end country lines drug dealing. No one will question the merits of his ambition, but he is making a promise that will be very hard to deliver.
This is what he said on the topic.
I want to see crime come down. I want to see the county lines drugs gangs wound up, rolled up. They are reducing the quality of life for people across our country, they are killing young kids. I want to see that thing totally wound up.
Q: Will Ann Secoulas, the US diplomat accused of killing Harry Dunn in a road accident, face justice?
Johnson says the US are unlikely to send her back to the UK. That is not what they do.
Asked Nandy whether she’d work with the Greens/Lib Dems at future elections. She says she supports working “with the broadest possible alliance” but pours cold water on electoral alliances, telling me: “it’s a bit defeatist to say we can only win power through electoral pacts.”
This transition period stuff is catching. The Queen has just released a read-out of her talks at Sandringham about Harry and Meghan and it turns out that their breakaway is also going to involve a transition period. Doubtless there will be calls for it to get extended too.
Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill stress need for unity as they take up senior roles
The Northern Ireland assembly has reopened for business three years almost to the day after it and the power-sharing executive in the region collapsed.
At an unprecedented Saturday sitting of the regional parliament, assembly members elected Sinn Féin’s Alex Maskey as the chamber’s speaker, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader, Arlene Foster, as first minister and Sinn Féin’s deputy leader, Michelle O’Neill, as deputy first minister.
Here’s a host more middle and junior-ranking ministerial appointments just announced by No 10:
A mooted plan to merge the department for international development (DfID) and the foreign office (FCO) risks allowing British aid money to be spent on “UK foreign policy, commercial and political objectives”, rather than on helping the world’s poorest people, more than 100 charities warn.
Merging DfID with the FCO would risk dismantling the UK’s leadership on international development and humanitarian aid. It suggests we are turning our backs on the world’s poorest people, as well as some of the greatest global challenges of our time: extreme poverty, climate change and conflict. UK aid risks becoming a vehicle for UK foreign policy, commercial and political objectives, when it first and foremost should be invested to alleviate poverty.
By far the best way to ensure that aid continues to deliver for those who need it the most is by retaining DfID as a separate Whitehall department, with a secretary of state for international development, and by pledging to keep both independent aid scrutiny bodies: the Independent Commission for Aid Impact and the International Development Select Committee.
Equality campaigners celebrate ahead of a midnight deadline for new laws to come into force
Northern Ireland is poised to legalise abortion and same-sex marriage after an 11th-hour attempt by the region’s assembly to block change collapsed into farce.
Equality campaigners celebrated on Monday as the clock ticked towards midnight when laws extending abortion and marriage rights were due to come into force, ushering in momentous social change as Northern Ireland aligned with the rest of the UK.
BREAKING: Michel Barnier has told EU Commissioners he is optimistic of getting a deal done today, @rtenews understands
2/ However, there still outstanding issues, so this could go right to the wire.
3/ It's understood VAT has emerged as a last minute problem: if NI remains inside the EU's VAT system, essential for North-South trade, then a new mechanism will have to be created for East-West trade, as the UK will be in its own VAT system
4/ However, it's understood officials are confident that a solution can be found.
5/ It's understood consent is also proving difficult, with a senior EU source saying the DUP are pushing to restore a tighter Stormont lock
6/ The third big hurdle is on the "level playing field" provisions. The EU is concerned at Boris Johnson's bid to dilute Theresa May's commitments to not stray far from the EU's environmental, state aid, social and labour standards
7/ The meeting of EU ambassadors, whom Barnier will brief, is still scheduled for 14hr CET, suggesting that the timings are still on course
ITV’s Robert Peston say the DUP are going back to Downing Street for another meeting.
DUP going back into Downing St, to try to find a way through roadblock. https://t.co/TDNS9amGqy
Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay will meet the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, in Brussels on Friday when they are expected to assess whether there are the grounds to move forward.