Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

I wouldn't be so sure about that. At all.

Genius level stuff from Poots. (not) what sort of backing will this get in NI.

Important that the EU response is calm, considered and robust. Notify the UK Govt they are in breach of the TCA and follow the agreed timeline and mechanism for rectifying the breach. If the UK doesn't comply with its obligations to restore the NIP the EU has to escalate its response to the point where the UK is motivated to comply regardless of the whinging of the DUP and ultimately if the UK refuses to honour the commitments and obligations it agreed to in the TCA the EU will have no choice but to terminate the TCA all together.

If you allow a counterparty to an agreement with you to renege on some of the commitments they entered into all you do is encourage them to renege on more and more commitments and other parties will also wonder why they should deliver on their commitments when others aren't and are getting away with it scot free.

Ultimately it is largely irrelevant whether it is technically lawful. It puts the entire agreement into question and will be seen as a hostile act, certainly against the spirit of the agreement, by the EU.

It has been agreed, many times by both sides, that there needs to be a resolution found to the issue of the NI border with the EU. The UK agreed, by way of the agreement, that checks at ports were the best way to achieve this.

Uk can of course do whatever it wants, but there are going to be consequences. And those consequences are the same now as they were the day they triggered A50. The UK needs to decide which is the least worst option.

I think that this is hilarious - the Minister being made to look totally powerless. Although he'll probably spin it that his Department has "become dominated by those of a nationalist persuasion", to quote Kate Hoey.

That document is... interesting to say the least. But a lot of the things they mentioned have little or nothing to do with Brexit and could have been done as an EU member.

I listened to Donaldson on BBC Radio Ulster this morning and his argument for bringing down Stormont is entirely self serving and hollow. He tries to dress it up as being in the interest of the whole of NI by claiming the NIP is "costing" businesses there £1 billion a year in additional costs but was torn to shreds by the presenter who pointed out the £1 billion figure was an estimate made by one economist versus the UK not leaving the EU at all and, uniquely, the NIP enabled NI businesses to mitigate the worst effects of Brexit by enabling them to continue trading freely with the EU and Donaldson had no choice but to acknowledge the NIP did in fact facilitate same.

The DUP have twisted themselves into knots over Brexit, got shafted by the ERG and BoJo who just wanted to get their English version of Brexit "done" and having been ignored when they stamped their feet and cried foul they are now throwing their toys out of the pram by bringing down Stormont but it's the last card they have to play and the entire NI electorate can see it for the desperate stunt it actually is.

The DUP are going to get annihilated in the forthcoming elections, are tearing themselves apart internally and are getting their excuses in early, they'll blame the UUP and TUV for fragmenting the Unionist vote and the British Government for handing control of Stormont over the Sinn Fein.

Who advised Poots? None other than the former Attorney General John Larkin, according to the Belfast Telegraph. Given the High Court ruling, he's made both himself and Poots look very foolish.