And now we wait to see if the sectarian nutters of the DUP will find this acceptable, or whether they’ll reject it and cause the north of Ireland to plunge into more violence as a result.
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Was looking up different perspectives and came across this absolute gem:
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“It was the Chartists! Or the anti-corn law league! And as for those Luddites, they’ve made the price of tea, yes tea too high for working families that we really care about m”.
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And we’re back into it’s impossible to parody $current_situation. One of the former PMs was proposing a NI-GB bridge/tunnel for no sound economic reason, but it made the DUP happy.
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Reading through this summary, it seems like the Stormont break is the EU being naive. This sort of thing works if both sides are dealing with each other in good faith and if such breaks are only applied if something is absolutely unacceptable to one side. That is not how UK politics work, and certainly not NI politics. They will probably throw the break on some EU rule as soon as they see their polls dipping, just to see what happens.
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Yeah, I saw that quote about NI now being in the 
and 
at the same time.
Did I read this right? NI is now officially double-regulated, unofficially a “free port” for those either unbothered by regulations, or who set up an import/export business to exploit the inevitable loopholes. Stormont can stop an law if the blesses the decision but not a rule ever, and has minimal input on rules and no input on rules. This nominally “devolved” NI is now subject to rules if the wheel of cheese has been “imported” for local consumption on the “green lane”, rules if it isn’t, called the “red lane”. The whole thing depends on nobody cheating or smuggling (maybe they’ll call that the “orange lane”) while at the same time providing maximal incentives to do exactly that.
I want my EU area passport back… 
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The special status of the Åland Islands in the EU
When Finland became a member of the European Union in 1995, the Parliament of Åland expressed, in accordance with the Autonomy Act and after two separate referendums, its consent to Åland’s membership of the EU. Åland’s relationship with the Union is regulated in a protocol containing special provisions for purchasing of real estate and the right to conduct business in Åland, thus confirming Åland’s special status under international law.
The Åland protocol also states that Åland shall be regarded as a third territory with respect to indirect taxation, which enables the sale of tax free goods to passengers travelling between the Åland Islands and other EU Member States, even though the tax exemption in the traffic between EU Member States ended as of 1 July 1999.
This exception also makes tax free sales possible for passengers travelling between the Åland Islands and mainland Finland.
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Again: these things work if you assume good faith on both sides, which in the case of the Åland Islands I do, but not in the case of any UK politics.
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Is not quite the same thing.
Here is the entire text:
Åland is a territory within the EU.
It has to abide by virtually all EU regulations and standards - it has a fairly major exemption regarding movent of persons in terms of owning land and establishing businesses and special tax status but otherwise all standards and regulations apply as normal.
It doesn’t get a veto on EU legislation.
It also doesn’t as far as I can see get to import goods from a non-EU third country without applying EU border checks. The provisions apply to trade between Åland and the rest of the EU not between Åland and non-EU third countries.
The NI agreement relies on people from a third country pinky-swearing not to move goods into the Republic from N.I. and if they make that promise, the usual border checks don’t apply.
Although I do note that there are vague references to the possibility of checks on “green lane” consignments where fraud/other dodginess is suspected.
Given that and the veto, I confidently expect the revised agreement to be revised further in due course.
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I wouldn’t expect “orange lane” to get much traction in NI. Well, maybe with the DUP.
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John Crace rather nails the contradiction here.
This guy was telling us how wonderful the EU single market was and how lucky Northern Ireland was to remain part of it. So it couldn’t have been Rishi Sunak. The Sunak we know and don’t really love campaigned vigorously to get the UK out of the EU and the single market. … Cue another discourse on the joys of the single market. Northern Ireland was the luckiest country in the entire world. The only one that could trade directly with both the rest of the UK and the EU. If only someone had got round to telling Rish! that before Brexit, England, Scotland and Wales had also enjoyed the same benefits. There again, it was his gift to make Northern Ireland so special.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-64819062
The inquiry’s findings on MI5 are damning.
Sir John Saunders details how, in the months before the attack, MI5 received two pieces of intelligence that were highly relevant to the plot.
The public report does not say what the intelligence was.
Much of MI5’s evidence to the inquiry was heard in secret for reasons of national security and the report is therefore limited in what it discloses.
The report finds that the first piece of intelligence should have been shared with Counter Terrorism Police, and that an MI5 officer should have written a report on the second piece of intelligence on the day they assessed it, but failed to do so.
The MI5 officer had, at the time, born in mind the possibility the information related to activity of “pressing national security concern”.
“In the context of national security, if there is a need to do something it is usually necessary to do it promptly,” the chairman states.
He finds the “delay in providing the report led to the missing of an opportunity to take a potentially important investigative action” which could have led to information which meant that Salman Abedi’s return to the UK before the attack would have been “treated extremely seriously” by MI5.
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