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LAST UPDATE | 1 Feb 2024
THE DUP HAS given the green light for the recall of the Stormont Assembly, with powersharing due to be restored in the North on Saturday.
The announcement from party leader Jeffrey Donaldson comes after two pieces of legislation contained in the UK Government’s deal to resurrect devolution were fast-tracked through the House of Commons.
The two motions were approved by MPs this afternoon without the need for a formal vote.
The UK government fast-tracked legislation that would realise the measures outlined in its Safeguarding the Union command paper.
This would replace the Windsor Framework’s green lane process at Northern Ireland ports with a “UK internal market system” that will govern the movement of goods inside the United Kingdom.
The regulations will need to be approved by the House of Lords before they can become law. This is expected to take place on 13 February.
The DUP has said the UK government’s package to revive devolution in Belfast has delivered “fundamental change” to UK-EU arrangements on post-Brexit trade.
Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson has previously said negotiations had led to “clear” alterations to the Windsor Framework by ending routine checks on goods moving from Britain to Northern Ireland.
Donaldson has written to the outgoing Speaker of the Stormont Assembly, Sinn Féin’s Alex Maskey, to confirm his party was prepared to end its two-year blockade on the institutions.
“I expect the Assembly will meet on Saturday following the Speaker consulting and making all necessary arrangements,” he said.
— DUP (@duponline) February 1, 2024
“It is my intention to meet with the leaders of the other executive parties during the course of Friday to finalise arrangements on the key issues that will be tackled by the incoming executive,” added Donaldson.
When the Northern Ireland Assembly does reconvene at Stormont, it will witness the historically significant moment of the appointment of its first nationalist first minister, Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill.
In the UK Commons earlier today, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris sought to reassure MPs that the measures will not reduce the UK’s ability to diverge from EU rules.
“This is an important new safeguard to future-proof Northern Ireland’s constitutional status,” Heaton Harris said.
“No government in the future can agree to another protocol, nor can the UK internal market be salami-sliced by any future agreement with the European Union.”
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood told Donaldson during today’s Commons session: “I think he has done a lot of good work over the past couple of weeks and he’s been very brave.”
However, Eastwood added that the SDLP “don’t support” this command paper.
The SDLP leader said it has “moved far beyond the principles set out in the Good Friday Agreement, it is undermining north-south cooperation, and it’s far too much focused on east-west”.
He said all future negotiation should be done with all parties and both governments so that “everybody can feel comfortable with the result”.
Donaldson said Eastwood made his point “with fortitude and determination”, but added that he makes “no apology” as a unionist for having a “focus on protecting, preserving and strengthening and binding together” the UK, of which the North is a “proud part”.
He added:
And today is an important moment for us as unionists. The strengthening of our constitutional position within the United Kingdom is important.”
While a major change to UK-EU trade arrangements would require the approval of the bloc’s 27 member states, Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government has said the changes outlined in the deal with the DUP are “operational” in nature and don’t change the “fundamentals”.
This morning, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that the European Commision would “have some questions” and will want to look at “some of the detail”, adding that he had spoken to the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen about the deal.
“There are definitely going to be some questions about what was agreed between the UK government in the DUP but nobody is, at this stage, saying that there are any red flags, anything that gives us major concern,” Varadkar told reporters in Brussels while attending an EU leaders summit focussed on renewing financial support for Ukraine.
Varadkar also said that Irish “red lines” related to the status of the border with Northern the Republic’s position in the EU single market had not been crossed.
“From our point of view in Ireland, our priority was always to make sure there was no hard border between North and South. I think that’s been achieved and protected,” he said.
Yesterday, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris spoke to EU Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic to explain the proposed changes detailed in the command paper.
In a statement, the Commission said it would “carefully analyse” the new measures.
With reporting from Hayley Halpin and Press Association
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under no circumstances should he be handed to usa
@joe doyle: Why there they are supposed to be the good guys nothing will happen to him surely.
@joe doyle: He’s a dreadful individual he conned his friends into losing half a million when they put up his bail then did a runner, he’s a spy & and a traitor putting lives at risk he deserves never to see the light of day again.
@Joe Thorpe: He’s only guilty of telling the truth. Western domination would come tumbling down if that kind of honesty became common place – gotta crush him to make sure other journalists tow the party line.
This comment from @tom_fowdy on twitter is very apt.
“Western propaganda is based on the following principles:
1) We are morally superior and enlightened
2) X country is doing horrible things
3) We need to act and do something about it
And because of point 1, 2 and 3 concurrently are believed every single time.”
@Joe Thorpe:
You are badly linformed.
He has committed no crime. The Swedes have dropped the false rape charge which the US/USA were using to get him to the US, where he faced charges of treason for revealing the war crimes of the US/NATO warmongers.
Now he will be extradited to the US, where he will not get a fair trial and be either “suicided” or murdered slowly by solitary confinement and torture. Guantanamo still exists, there are prisioners there without trial for years.
The US have promised a fair trial and no restrictive measures against him. But if he contravenes any of the conditions of his imprisonment according to the head of the CIA, these guarantees will fall.
The same CIA which investigated assassinating Assange in the past.
@Joe Thorpe:
It is you who is a dreadful individual, what have you done for mankind except make silly remarks?
Julian Assange has more courage, brains and integrity than you had or will have.
Stop watching Sky New/reading the Sun or other British rubbish and try to get information from sources that are not British government mouthpieces.
That includes many Irish media.
Will they be handing over the diplomats wife?
@motojack: She will be under trial in the US and conclusion will be that motorcyclist caused the accident by driving on the wrong side of the road.
@motojack: That was the problem, she and her husband weren’t diplomats and didn’t have diplomatic immunity. I can understand how it can happen as I’ve driven in the US many times. Your natural tendency is to drive on the side you are used to, you really have to pay attention. Why she just didn’t stay and deal with it I don’t know, she probably would have been given a slap on the hand and a driving ban.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: not likely. She would have had to do time more than likely. Britain is draconian when it comes to road deaths or even crashes that are non fatal.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Both she and her husband are intelligence agents and apparently pretty senior ones . The Americans are not going to allow people like that to be locked up.
@motojack:
No way! The Yanks never hand over their citizens, but expect other countries to do so. Usually the Brits trip themselves over to facilitate them.
Some years ago a US fighter plane flew UNDER the cables of a cabin taking skiers up a mountain in Italian, killing all on board.
The four US military were whipped out of Italy immediately, and never faced charges.
Julian Assange has killed nobody, he has merely exposed the hypocrisy and lies of the “Western” governments, including Ireland, and their war crimes.;
For this he is being punished, also to send a message to other journalists that the truth must not be let out, ever.
@Colin Conlan:
Brilliant!
Yet they won’t send Anne Sacoolas back for killing Harry Dunne and fleeing the country. Disgraceful double standards.
@Mark Brown: https://youtu.be/LVwby34mR6E?t=200
On the basis of ‘four light assurances from US authorities’… Oh yeah, like they have a good track record there.
Shocking and sad day for so called ‘Freedom of speech’ and ‘Democracy’…. And all at the hands of the 2 biggest so called ‘crusaders’ of the ‘free’ world
Freedom of speech is great, until you say what “they” don’t like.
@Kieran Woods: Freedom of speech is only to particular case of saying something irrelevant to a deaf audience. Everything else draws penalty by some law.
The rte website claims the case against Assange is because he “attempted to obtain and disclose national defence information” no mention that Assange actually made public war crimes by US in Iraq, rte is Orwellian to the core in their mastery of language for hiding relevant facts
Imagine he’s only crime was making govts look bad. Telling everyone the truth at what was going and govts all over the world were scrambling. At the end of the day what the US did was illegal and they committed mass murder in the middle east likewise as they had done in Vietnam and anyone who exposed them was the enemy.
There was a doc leaked where it showed the UK GCHQ were tapping all Ireland’s internet cables and harvesting all the private data so they could spy on Irish citizens. Somehow our govt was ok with that!
Lap-dog and Poodle come to mind.
He has severe mental health issues. This is a death sentence.
The objective here is to slowly drive Assange to complete breakdown, it will be dragged out over years to achieve this end, any pretence that the British judicial system is totally independent of the political establishment is farcical.
It will serve as a warning to any future whistleblowers what awaits them if they expose war crimes by any western nation.
The absolute craven attitude from the msm is hardly surprising, case gets coverage only from the legal proceedings point of view but no pressure from the media on politicians to protect whistleblowers that are doing the job the msm are not allowed to do, the EU with all their pretence about protecting human rights are about as silent in this matter as they are regards the war in Yemen and the butchering of a journalist by the Saudis, it’s easy speak out againts clowns like Lukashenko but not good oul uncle sam and buddies, a sad day for proper journalism and the rights of individuals against persecution by militaristic states.
It is easy now for UK to rule subjectively on what they want, as ECJ is out of the way.
Frightening and despicable. You think we live in an enlightened, free society in the West, but do something big enough the establishment doesn’t like and see what happens.
It will be interesting to see if the US adhere to their assurances … serving his sentence in Australia , for example…. that would be hard to swallow as he’s an arch enemy to their LEAs they want an example made of him , harsh sentence and incarceration , as if they hadn’t already done this already to others whistleblowers .
A disgraceful decision but also a totally predictable one. The timing during Biden’s Summit for Democracy is ironic seeing as Freedom of The Press is such a big part of that event.
And we still let state killers land in Shannon and head off to the middle east to indiscriminately murder men women and children.
Will the sht just hit the fan….. And the walls and got smeared.
Great news.
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