Boris Johnson won’t propose law to withdraw part of EU’s withdrawal agreement, in new “betrayal” of unionism
The Northern Ireland minister in the British government, Brandon Lewis, has stated that Boris Johnson will not include a bill to unilaterally reform the withdrawal agreement from the European Union in the legislative program he will present on Tuesday, raising the possibility of a strong confrontation with Brussels.
Lewis’ statement, during an interview on Wednesday evening, indicates that the British government wants to continue to negotiate with the EU over the operation of border controls between Britain and Northern Ireland, rather than invoking Article 16 of the Irish Protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement , which may suspend its implementation.
The fact that Lewis announced the measure in the evening, on the eve of Election Day, furthers the fact that the vote took place normally, although it is a blow to Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. who had claimed that the London government would act very soon after the election to resolve the dispute over the existence of the new border.
Northern Ireland moved into a time of uncertainty over the restoration of its autonomy and its membership in the European common market, following a campaign described as “calm” by all witnesses. The benefits of the peace process launched in 1998 are reflected in that calmness when issues are at stake that would have led to tensions or violence in the past.
Lewis’s announcement makes it more likely that no joint Executive will be formed in the coming days, amid unions’ refusal to run the region in the absence of a radical reform of the Protocol. Border controls are, from the EU’s perspective, the only possible mechanism to keep Northern Ireland in the single European market at the same time as in the UK.
Another question in the campaign was whether Sinn Féin will win or whether the tactical union vote will maintain the age-old tradition that the region’s leader is a Protestant. The two highest positions in the autonomy, the Chief Minister and the Chief Deputy Minister, have the same powers and must share decisions, but the former has more media visibility. Acceptance of both charges by Donaldson now seems unlikely.
There were no exact participation figures. The BBC asked polling officers to post the voter balance and voter list on Twitter, to provide an estimate Thursday night. The data was highly fragmented and indicated a decline in voter numbers from 2017 when the voter turnout was 64.8%.
According to the polls, no party will achieve a higher percentage of votes than the abstentions in the census. A high percentage of undecided was detected and, given the circumstances of a possible victory for Sinn Féin, historically associated with the IRA, this high figure suggests there were voters waiting for more clarity in the final days of the campaign who favored a tactical vote. planted.
The electoral system, as in the Southern Republic, is based on marking the boxes in order of preference and on the distribution of the 90 seats at stake by counting and allocating the votes of successive preferences according to the d’Hondt rule. It is a system that frustrates by the lack of immediacy of the results, but that gives importance to all votes.
The results of local elections in England, Scotland and Wales this Friday will provide an assessment of the impact the saga of holding Downing Street rallies banned by the rules against the spread of the pandemic has had on the popularity of the Conservatives and its leader, Boris Johnson. The most widespread prediction is that the general election will be called in 2024.
Analysts’ eyes will be on the results in England’s central and northern regions, which have gained political prominence as those former Labor strongholds enabled the victory of Brexit in 2016 and Johnson’s Conservatives in 2019. His government is committed to a policy of economic promotion of these regions to bring the country into balance.
The victory in those constituencies gives the government a majority of 73 MPs in the House of Commons. In the indicated regions, the ‘Tories’ won 48 seats in 2019 compared to 2017. The latest poll published shows that Labor will not make big gains in these elections in these disputed areas.
The councils in England are divided into blocks of councils and those of May should be compared with those of 2018, when Labor achieved very good results. They can’t raise much more, although the poll indicates they will continue to increase their councils in London. In the capital, the conservatives won 21 of the 73 seats in the running in 2019, confirming their decline in the capital.
The analysts’ other gaze is on the south. In deputy deputy votes, held since 2019, residents of traditionally Conservative constituencies voted for the Liberal Democrats, with Labor backing them to vote tactically to avoid the Blue victory. If this tactical alliance of the opposition to the government is repeated in the municipal elections, Johnson is in danger.
The conservative party is often portrayed as a power-grabbing machine, as opposed to a left-wing party that often gets entangled in doctrinal issues. The discomfort with Johnson in his faction is due to his behavior during the ‘party gate’, but also because his loss of popularity leads deputies to suspect they will lose their seats by 2024. When they return to the House of Commons on Tuesday, the results of these local elections will determine the strength of their leader.
Source: La Verdad
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