Stormont staggers on, mostly because no one can agree on an alternative
Preference for a united Ireland has risen from a quarter to a third. Support for direct rule is about 15%, while 10% want an independent Northern Ireland
Newton Emerson
Newton Emerson columns
Why has ramming police cars become a trend in Northern Ireland?
There were 40 ramming incidents in the 12 months up to the end of November, injuring 58 officers
Why are unionist politicians shy of challenging loyalism?
It is an absurdity that Winston Irvine missed his graduation from Maynooth with a masters in “international peacebuilding” because of a court appearance connected to the UVF bomb hoax on Simon Coveney
The real danger now is of Sinn Féin quiet quitting in Northern Ireland
Concerns that Sinn Féin’s electoral setback will destabilise Stormont miss the point. The party is at greater risk of endlessly shirking difficult decisions
For flax sake: why is the idea of a new flag for Northern Ireland so controversial?
The flax plant might be bland and its symbolism trite, but the same could be said of the Tricolour
Farmers have a point - if only they could make it more reasonably
New rules introduced by the UK government bring a quarter of farms back within inheritance tax, after three decades of being fully exempt. They’re right to be annoyed, but sympathy is waning
Politicians need to decide if Northern Ireland is desperately poor or so rich it requires no help
What passes for debate on a united Ireland is endlessly derailed by absurd claims from activists, academics and politicians. At least Fianna Fáil has now begun putting flesh on the bones of its plans
Gavin Robinson and the DUP need to reach out with style as well as substance
The DUP gives the impression of modernising at minimum speed, while being constantly tempted by conservative culture-war positions
It is dangerous to compare the slave trade and British rule in Ireland
Robert Jenrick’s suggestion that former colonies ‘owe a debt of gratitude’ to the British empire is one of the more robust responses to reparations debate
Stormont’s only ideology is to be a shadow of Britain
An almost total dearth of ideology, beyond unionism or nationalism, may be the deepest North-South political divide
Britain’s anti-obesity jab plan is the stuff of sci-fi
Drastic action is considered essential, but this is part of a wider strategy that represents a looming calamity for Stormont
Michael McMonagle scandal: Sinn Féin needs to get to grips with its troubled relationship with money
Not every organisation passes its employees around like a pilfered stapler until nobody is quite sure what is going on
How Northern Ireland’s supermarket aisles have become another Brexit battleground
Brexit and the sea border have dragged all aspects of trade with Northern Ireland into the zero-sum game of traditional politics
Why Dublin, London and Stormont are still bankrolling loyalists
Throughout the negotiations of the 1990s, the British government and many others encouraged loyalism to develop a political project mirroring that of Sinn Féin. This briefly appeared realistic
Stop blaming unionists for the Casement Park debacle
What remains of the Euros plan is rancour and paranoia, a sorry legacy for what was meant to be an inspiring cross-community project
In their cosy new embrace, Starmer and Harris may be forgetting the Belfast Agreement
Concerns are being raised by experts that north-south and east-west strands face being “hollowed out” by careless duplication
If you want to know whether Sinn Féin’s housing policy will work, look at what it achieved in the North
There’s one unifying factor to the party’s entirely different strategies in the North and South: both approaches ultimately aim to secure power to advance a united Ireland
UUP needs to become the Progressive Democrats to the DUP’s Fianna Fáil
The UUP could become unionism’s champion of centre-right or centrist good government, challenging the populism and incompetence of the DUP and Sinn Féin
Something weird is happening to the North’s economy, and for once Brexit is not responsible
The public sector is crumbling as essential reforms fall prey to spineless politics. Yet the private sector is booming
No major party has been as cynical on immigration as Fine Gael
The temptation for Sinn Féin will be to portray opposition to immigration as a unionist prejudice, while urging everyone else, North and South, to follow its example and do better
Why the three main unionist parties are making a show of themselves over a GAA flag
A classic failure of unionism is fear of being called a Lundy, an insult derived from the siege of Derry, meaning a traitor or appeaser. The entire unionist political system immediately Lundied itself over the GAA flag
Britain seemed to have turned a corner on immigration after Brexit. Then October 7th happened
The scale and intensity of the protests that followed have caused a backlash against both immigration and the UK’s four million Muslim citizens. Tentative progress on understanding Islam in Britain has been thrown into reverse
How to talk about a united Ireland: Say little and set up a committee
Nothing in the report by the latest all-party Oireachtas committee is contentious because avoiding contention is the point
The difference between Simon Harris and Leo Varadkar on UK-Irish relations goes beyond tone
And it works both ways. Harris’s warmth towards the UK is being rewarded with a softening of Keir Starmer’s stance on a Border poll
Unionism has welcomed Labour’s apparently inevitable win, but nationalists are already milking it
The next UK government’s spending policy could lead to a boon for Stormont parties thanks to the oddities of devolutionary accounting
Northerners look on the Republic’s motorways with envy – but tolls are a bridge too far
Newton Emerson: Toll roads and Northern Ireland: as so often at Stormont, everybody knows what should be done but nobody will step forward to do it.
Larne gas cavern project a victim of green nimbyism and North’s administrative deadlock
Gas storage saga has been dragging on for years for facility that should have been operational in 2022 and which would have helped following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Can Sinn Féin pull off its left-right, North-South balancing act?
The party may move economically left and socially right in the Republic - but it needs to stay the course in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland’s poultry industry must be forced to clean up its act
A BBC investigation found Moy Park breached legal limits on effluent discharge hundreds of times since 2017 within the catchment of Lough Neagh
Some claims about the cost of a united Ireland don’t stack up
These are not harmless notions to drop into public discourse from the top of an ivory tower. Everyone involved should take more care
Why Caoimhe Archibald is the rising star of Northern politics
Sinn Féin’s Minister of Finance is reinforcing a message the party wants to send to voters North and South — it can be trusted in office
Northern Ireland is already a ‘sanctuary city’ in the UK – it could yet become one in Europe
If Brussels were to allow Rwanda-type schemes elsewhere in the EU, London could say this permitted a similar scheme across the UK, yet a court in Belfast could disagree
There’s an obvious solution to the migration row: compatible national identity cards for Ireland and Britain
Rights groups who raised valid objections to the intrusiveness of identity cards need to accept that ship has sailed - the alternative is Kafkaesque bureaucracy and racial profiling
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