Political Editor, UnHerd. Host of the podcast These Times (@TheseTimesPod). Formerly of the Atlantic.
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Nov 9, 2021 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
Two important pieces have recently been published on NI that shed more light on both the UK's catastrophic failure and, in my view, the cost of the EU's partial interpretation of the GFA. The first is by Policy Exchange and 2nd by IRE's former perm rep to EU. Some thoughts 1/17
Roderick Crawford's account for Policy Ex is devastating for both HMG and Theresa May. He shares a lot of my plague-on-both-your-houses analysis. The current crisis in NI is the consequence of British weakness/failure and EU strength/irresponsibility policyexchange.org.uk/publication/th…
2/17
Jun 7, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: I’ve spent the last few months in and out of No.10 speaking to the PM and his team, trying to get a grip on who he is and what he’s trying to do for this month’s @TheAtlantic cover. Read my profile of this most elusive and formidable storytellers👇1/ theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
I interviewed him multiple times, as well as his most senior advisers, travelling with him to Belfast, Wolverhampton, Hartlepool and Sedgefield. We talked Le Carré and mortality, Horace and history, Christianity and Trump, Brexit and the future of Britain. What did I find?... 2/
Dec 16, 2019 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
In one election Boris Johnson has been transformed; from celebrity chancer to the most dominant politician since Tony Blair. But who is he? What drives him? How does he govern? And what lies behind his appeal? Over the last six months I’ve tried to answer these questions 1/8
First, the man. Here is somebody everyone knows but few *know*, a celebrity and a loner whose character was forged in adolescent tragedy. I profiled the man—and the mask—in July as he fulfilled his lifelong dream to be PM 2/8 theatlantic.com/international/…
Dec 9, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I travelled to Northern Ireland to ask the most fundamental question of this election that few are taking seriously: Will a Tory victory, and the subsequent imposition of Boris Johnson’s deal, lead to unionist disillusionment—or something more sinister? theatlantic.com/international/…
“The unionist cause is not about customs-clearance forms but in the harder-to-define concepts of identity and belonging. It is tied up in history and inheritance, identity and nation, great-grandfathers killed for king and country at the Somme and fathers killed by the IRA...”
Nov 27, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The key to understanding Corbyn is moral absolutism. Remember, it’s part of his appeal: he’s unchanging, incorruptible (which = trust). But it explains why he will not take easy political decisions, like apologising. It’s because he doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong 1/5
I once asked a very close ally the difference between Corbyn and McDonnell. The answer: John is more ideological, but more flexible. Jeremy is less ideological, but more rigid. This, I think, is the absolute, irreducible core of Corbyn 2/5
Oct 22, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This has long been the obvious consequence of a deal universally opposed by unionism. Power sharing, a core plank of the Good Friday Agreement, may be the victim of a settlement to protect the Good Friday Agreement 1/4
So what can be done? There aren’t many avenues left, is the honest answer. But there’s one, perhaps: Within the WA there remains a clause that if joint consent cannot be achieved for the new system, then there’s an obligation to work toward something that can 2/4
Oct 19, 2019 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
So, there’s something of an accidental unexploded bomb buried in The Deal. It’s unlikely to explode, but it’s there. It goes like this (stick with me...)
1. The WA is not supposed to establish permanent new governance for N. Ireland, because it’s a divorce document (remember?)
2. As Boris Johnson has been suggesting, any new FTA could, legally, replace the arrangements for Northern Ireland. All it takes is for Northern Ireland to vote to withhold consent from The Deal...
Oct 17, 2019 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
The EU said:
1. There could be no unilateral exit mechanism for NI
—There now is
2. That NI should, legally, be EU customs territory
—No longer
In today’s culture war people will say black is white, but it does not make it so. Good or bad, this is a different deal
Thread 1/6
Soon, there will be a boring debate about whether this deal proves either the EU’s might—or Boris Johnson’s.
Truth is both have made concessions. *That’s what politics is about*: the resolution of disputes without recourse to violence 2/6
Oct 16, 2019 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
While the default position of many (most?) is to mock or disdain the DUP, it’s worth trying to understand their perspective, the challenges they now face—and why any grown up should hope that whatever is agreed no side in Northern Ireland feels humiliated. Thread 1/15
Many will immediately respond: “Serves them right for backing Brexit.” The DUP view (not unreasonable) is the Good Friday Agreement *affirmed* UK sovereignty in NI—and NI citizens’ equality as UK citizens. They resent being told they cannot be pro Brexit like anyone else 2/15
Oct 15, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
As someone involved in the process put it to me: if the EU can agree a much more complicated UK-wide customs union for the WA, they can agree a far simpler zero-tariff arrangement 1/6
Remember: We heard the exact same complaint before the all-UK customs union was agreed—that it was too complicated and there was not enough time. Then it happened 2/6
Oct 8, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Merkel call was indeed a disaster, as others have reported. But worse even than briefings I’m told. She essentially instructed Johnson to tell NI to accept full alignment on customs and regulation. Ordering either side in NI to do stuff is usually a good idea I’m told... 1/4
Reminds me of a complaint from a Merkel-friendly v senior member of Theresa May’s team who said the German chancellor applied her own experiences of borders to Ireland, but could only see North-South, not East-West 2/4
Oct 2, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
What is the main political problem with the backstop? Imbalance. Ireland gets what it wants, but UK & NI unionism does not.
UK offer *an attempt* to balance concessions:
⚡️DUP to accept goods alignment
⚡️🇮🇪 to accept customs divergence & consent
⚡️🇬🇧 to accept regs border
1/4
This is not to say the offer will—or should—be accepted, but to explain its intensely *political* nature, which attempts to get close (but not all the way) to the edge of what is politically possible in the UK. There's more wiggle room, but not much...
2/4
Sep 30, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Arlene Foster’s intervention raises an old question: to whom are Ulster’s loyalists loyal?
In ‘75 Enoch Powell said a loyalist could not, logically, place “conditions upon his obedience to the Crown in Parliament”
Ian Paisley & the DUP said no—their loyalty *is* conditional 1/8
Ian Paisley’s argument could be Arlene Foster’s today: “If the Crown in Parliament decreed to put Ulster into a United Ireland, according to Mr Powell’s theory we would have to obey if we were loyal. This is utter nonsense.” Sound familiar? 2/8
Sep 20, 2019 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Let me add a touch of scepticism to this morning's Coveney love-in. He is incisive, clear and forceful—all things which have been missing in the UK since 2016. But what did he say that, in any way, helped solve *the* hurdle in the talks: unionist political consent? 1/6
Look at Coveney's (v clearly articulated) point:
—Regulatory alignment is the *only* solution
—Nothing else works (it's been tested)
What is the conclusion?
—Unionist concerns that the backstop is the permanent settlement for N Ireland are valid 2/6
Sep 10, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Compromise is *political* in nature. Take Good Friday: Republicanism gave way on the *principle* of Northern Irish consent for reunification. After this, the deal fell into line. Unionism compromised on power sharing before decommissioning. Where are we today? 1/4
Today, the Irish government has a mechanism which achieves its goal: no legal economic border. Any concession from here is sub-optimal based on this goal. Johnson needs to find a reason for *political* concessions 2/4
Sep 5, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
In Boris's novel, 72 Virgins, the central character, the bumbling anti-hero Roger Barlow (a bicycling, angst-ridden Tory MP with only a “knuckle of principle") speculates about what motivates him. Does he have a Thanatos urge, he wonders? — A death urge. theatlantic.com/international/…
This "death urge" is common among PMs, Lucille Iremonger wrote in her seminal book, The Fiery Chariot, exploring the lives of political leaders. Iremonger describes the hunger for power among the insecure as the Phaeton complex, from the Greek myth theatlantic.com/international/…
Jul 22, 2019 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Forced to choose one Boris story, I'd pick Eulalie. In his novel, 72 Virgins, Johnson hints throughout that his lead character, the bumbling antihero MP (geddit?) Roger Barlow, is about to be exposed for an affair—only to reveal at the end it's not an affair he's worried about...
In fact, on the second to last page, the reader discovers Barlow has actually given a large sum of money to a woman who's sunk it all into a lingerie shop-turned brothel called Eulalie. But why did he call it Eulalie?...
Jul 18, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
.@prashantrao and I spoke to more than a dozen current and former diplomats about the changing nature of their work. The picture that emerges is of a systemic decline in trust, sparked by #cablegate and then fuelled by a series of other breaches leading up to the Darroch affair
"This breakdown in trust has potentially severe implications for diplomacy, but also for foreign services and the formation of overseas policy more generally if ambassadors feel unable to report the reality on the ground as they see it for fear of political upset at home."
Jul 16, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The brutal Barclay-Barnier bust up (ht @brunobrussels) is a reminder of the simple reality that the last two years of negotiations now stand on the brink of almost total failure for *both* sides. One side may suffer more—inevitably—but that doesn’t mean the other has succeeded*
*Unless success is measured solely on the crude metric of whether leaving the EU is proven to be very painful and wider considerations of peace, economic stability, friendly relations etc are sacrificed on that altar.
Four key quotes from my piece on the Ulster conundrum at the heart of what may soon be a continental crisis: 1) V senior EU27 official: "The major mistake of the British govt is she did not push back vigorously enough on the definition of a 'hard border.'” politico.eu/article/brexit…2) The official said even in Dublin there was some unease at the Irish government’s hard-line position. “There were differences of opinion on [whether] the interpretation of the Good Friday Agreement had been taken too far."
