‘Frostbite’ toes and other peculiar rashes may be signs of hidden coronavirus infection, especially in the young

As a dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Esther Freeman was prepared for things to be a bit quieter during the pandemic lockdown. But not too long after it began, she started getting urgent calls about odd frostbite-like patches showing up on people’s toes.
The rash itself was rather harmless.
While some complained of a burning sensation, the inflammation usually disappeared on its own in two to three weeks without treatment. What was striking is that many of those patients had tested positive for covid-19.
“My inbox and my telemedicine clinic are full of just toes. It’s all about toes. I have never seen so many toes,” Freeman said.
The curious phenomenon has also caught the interest of researchers in hot zones such as France, Italy and China. But the reports had been mostly limited to individual case studies and first-person observations, making it difficult to determine what these rashes mean, why they are occurring and how they are linked to the virus.
Now a U.S.-based group is preparing to publish the first in-depth look at covid-19’s dermatologic effects, based on a registry of nearly 300 patients confirmed or suspected of having the virus. The report, expected out as soon as this week, offers some tantalizing clues about the pathogen and its wildly different effects on different people.
Four months into the battle with the novel coronavirus, the paper is part of a flood of scientific evidence that is challenging early assumptions that covid-19 primarily affects the lungs. While the majority of cases turn out to be mild and may involve no symptoms at all, we now know infection can sometimes result in devastating injury to the kidneys, heart and other major organs.
And in the same way the first sign of infection for some may be loss of smell and taste — those are among the six new covid-19 symptoms the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added to its list Monday — the toe rashes may be an early marker of disease, or possibly one that it has resolved and passed.
One of the clearest findings of the new paper is that most patients with “covid toes” were asymptomatic or had only mild symptoms. Another is their age. Nearly all were children or adults in their 20s and 30s — a group that as a whole tends to have a less severe bodily response to the disease than their older counterparts.
Freeman, a Harvard Medical School researcher who led the analysis in collaboration with the American Academy of Dermatology, said the information should be comforting to those who have seen the lesions on themselves or loved ones.
“Most of the patients were young, healthy and had a benign clinical course,” she said.
“The message to the public is not to panic,” she added. “I don’t want people to think if they are having purple spots on their toes that they are going to end up on a ventilator in the ICU. That is not what we are seeing in the data.”
One of the earliest reports of issues in toes came in early April, when a French dermatology group warned of “pseudo-frostbite” of the extremities and transient hives, and urged patients with such problems to consult a dermatologist. “We alert the population and the medical profession to detect these potentially contagious patients — who may not necessarily have respiratory signs — as soon as possible,” they wrote.
Then on April 18, a report in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology detailed purplish lesions on the feet of a 23-year-old student in Belgium. He had a dry cough and a low-grade fever and tested positive for covid-19, but was otherwise healthy. The researchers theorized that the lesions may “portend an indolent course and a good prognosis.”
Viral rashes themselves are not unusual. Changes in the skin — the body’s largest organ — are often one of the most obvious indicators that something is awry. Measles produces itchy flat spots; coxsackie, painful sores in the hands, feet and mouth; and dengue fever, what has been described as “islands of white in a sea of red” on the face.
But the location of the rash on the toes, and sometimes fingers too, has puzzled researchers.
This type of rash, called pernio or chilblains, usually occurs in the dead of winter because of exposure to cold, such as when a person is slogging in freezing rain in wet socks. But covid-19 patients are getting it in springtime. Doctors also typically see the rash in people who work as florists or in warehouses that are not temperature-controlled — not in children, as is happening now.
“The truth is nobody knows why this is happening and why it’s happening in the toes and fingers,” said Ebbing Lautenbach, chief of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
One theory is that it may be related to inflammation and blood-clotting complications, he said, which more and more doctors suspect are a cause of some covid-19 deaths.
“As you get away from the core of the body out to the periphery, the blood vessels get smaller, so they are more susceptible to inflammation and clotting,” Lautenbach explained.
In the case of the 23-year-old student in Belgium, researcher Curtis Thompson said a biopsy showed inflammation in the cells in the location of the rash that resulted in attacks to the surface of the skin’s dermis, the inner of the two main layers of skin. He said it looked nearly identical to what he’s seen in patients with lupus, an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation and pain because the immune system attacks healthy tissue.
“You could take these biopsies and put them in a textbook under the lupus chapter,” said Thompson, an affiliate professor of dermatology and pathology at Oregon Health & Science University.
As a result, he believes the rashes are a sign that the body’s natural defense mechanisms are at work. But unlike lupus, for which there is no cure, the suspected covid-19 rashes have come and gone within days or weeks in the patients he’s seen.
Of the first 200 reports analyzed for the study, out of a total of 300 in the registry today, about half were toe rashes. The other skin conditions reported include hives, those itchy red bumps that are usually a sign of an allergic reaction; water blisters; and something that looks a lot like chickenpox.
Joanna Harp, a dermatologist at New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, said she suspects “the various skin findings we are seeing may reflect the myriad of different ways our immune system can react to this virus.”
In hospitalized patients, she said there has been a pattern of “lacy, dusky, purple rashes” on the arms, legs and buttocks, which are distinct from the toe rashes. She said skin biopsies showed there was clotting in the blood vessels of the skin. A paper published in the Lancet medical journal earlier this month showed the virus appears to attack a thin layer of cells that line the vessel walls, suggesting a possible mechanism for these types of rashes and other clotting problems.
“Many of these patients also have evidence of internal clotting, such as blood clots in the veins of their legs, or in their lungs, suggesting these skin findings are a manifestation of their internal clotting tendency,” Harp said.
Freeman said that while her team is still analyzing information about other types of rashes, she feels it’s important for people to be aware because they “are potentially infectious and might have no idea they are infected.” She urged those who notice such lesions to talk to a health-care professional to see if there may be other explanations.
If not, she said, people might consider getting tested for the virus and self-isolating.
“What people are worried about when they see these things on their toes are two main things: ‘Oh, my gosh, am I going to get really sick?’ The data is reassuring on that,” Freeman said. “The other is, ‘Am I going to infect my family and friends?’ And on that, unfortunately, I can’t be more reassuring.”
Read more:
Some young and middle-aged people, barely sick with covid-19, are dying of strokes
Britain’s national health authority issued a worrisome alert about children, covid-19 and potential complications
Coronavirus looks different in kids than in adults
A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients


How Brexit will impact Ireland facts and fiction

I am planning to travel to Ireland and want to understand the impact of Brexit on Ireland, including the impact on currency exchange and imports and exports.  I am also interested in Irish perceptions of Brexit and supposed impacts, whether they are real or not.  What is transpiring in Ireland due to Brexit?  I'm not interested in the politics of Britain in the sense of how they got to Brexit. To be relevant, it must directly discuss Ireland.

Research the question's impact on a country, excluding its politics.

As Britain reels, the queen stays silent. For how long?

Britain's Queen Elizabeth leaves after attending a Maundy Thursday service at St George's Chapel in Windsor, Britain March 24, 2016. REUTERS/Toby Melville
LONDON — From pubs in Peterborough to beaches in Brighton, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the United Kingdom holding back their views on Brexit.
Well, actually, there is one person: Queen Elizabeth II.
She is Britain's longest-serving monarch and is the head of state of the U.K., a political union made up of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
However, the queen’s united kingdom is looking anything but. Its very existence has come under threat after the U.K.’s stunning decision to leave the European Union — popularly known as Brexit. Although no one knows where all the pieces of the puzzle will land, some have questioned whether the map of the U.K. might be redrawn to include just England and Wales.
The British Empire once covered a quarter of the world. Now Brexit could shrink the UK to just England and Wales https://t.co/zbYAaPkLix
On Monday, the 90-year-old monarch was expected to attend a number of public engagements in Northern Ireland. As of Monday afternoon, she had not said a word — at least publicly — about Brexit.
The Queen has arrived in Northern Ireland. Will she be talking Brexit? They voted remain here https://t.co/y6zr5JlYQL
The queen’s deafening silence is in stark contrast to what happened after the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, when she issued a statement within hours of the results.
Of course, these are unusual times.
When the queen visited Northern Ireland in 2014, she stopped by the set of "Game of Thrones." If she doesn't have time on this trip, she could always turn on the telly to see a PG-rated version playing out in Westminster’s corridors of power. British Prime Minister David Cameron, the queen’s 12th prime minister, resigned Friday morning, and both of Britain's main political parties are in turmoil.
Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland and one of Britain’s canniest politicians (future Queen of the North?), has been busy pushing her dream for Scottish independence. She says it is “highly likely” that there will be a second referendum on Scottish independence, given that the majority of Scots voted to remain in the E.U.
The Scottish National Party has said that if Scotland were to gain independence, the queen would remain head of state with the title “Queen of Scots.”
In Northern Ireland, where voters strongly backed staying in the bloc, questions have been raised about border checks between a post-Brexit Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which is in the E.U., and what that could mean for the fragile peace process.
The political party Sinn Fein has called for the border to be removed completely.
Britain is a constitutional monarchy with a queen who reigns but does not rule. She can’t vote and is expected to remain politically neutral.
“As Head of State The Queen has to remain strictly neutral with respect to political matters,” the palace says on its website.
Indeed, when the Sun tabloid ran a front-page headline “Queen backs Brexit,” Buckingham Palace complained to the media watchdog, which ruled that the headline was inaccurate.
“The queen remains politically neutral as she has for 63 years,” the palace said in response to the headline.
But nothing prevents her from issuing the kind of statement she did after the Scottish referendum, in which she said she had no doubt that the U.K. would unite “in a spirit of mutual respect and support.”
The queen “is a tremendous unifying” figure, said Robert Lacey, a royal biographer, who noted that she has played an important role in Anglo-Irish relations.
For instance, when she visited the Republic of Ireland in 2011, the first British monarch to do so in 100 years, she was widely praised for her efforts toward reconciliation. During a state banquet in Dublin, she began her speech by speaking in Irish, causing then-Irish President Mary McAleese to turn to others and mouth “wow.”
But on issues related to Brexit, it appears that the queen is holding her tongue — for now, at least.


A tiny party of hardliners holds the balance of power in Britain. Here’s what you need to know

British newspapers on Friday tout the election results. (Daniel Sorabji/AFP/Getty Images)
After last week’s shocking results, Britain’s Conservative Party had to make a deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to return to government. It appears likely that the DUP will not go into a coalition with the Conservatives, but will simply support the “minority government” from the outside on key votes, while not being part of the coalition.
Here’s what you need to know about the DUP and the likely deal they will strike.
It is Northern Ireland’s hard-line Unionist party.
The DUP, as the name suggests, is a party that supports the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and opposes nationalists and republicans who would prefer a united Ireland. In Northern Ireland’s political system, there is a very strong link between voting and religion: Most Catholics vote for nationalist or republicans; most Protestants vote for unionists. Since a peace agreement was reached a decade ago, Ulster politics have become more polarized, with Protestants tending to vote for more extreme unionists and Catholics voting for republicans, who were associated with the Irish Republican Army, instead of nationalists. This polarization benefited both the DUP, which took seats in Parliament from the less fervent Ulster Unionist Party in Thursday’s election, and the republican Sinn Fein party, which wiped out the nationalist SDLP.
It is associated with anti-Catholic evangelical Protestantism.
Originally, the DUP was closely associated with the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, which was founded by the Rev. Ian Paisley, who also led the DUP for decades. The Free Presbyterians are evangelical, fundamentalist Christians. In contrast to conservative evangelicals in the United States, who forged a tacit political alliance with conservative Catholics decades ago, the Free Presbyterians have strong anti-Catholic views. Paisley himself was involved with anti-Catholic paramilitaries in the 1960s and notoriously yelled that Pope John Paul II was the “Antichrist” when the pontiff visited the European Parliament in the 1980s. The relationship between the church and party has weakened over time: Paisley’s successor as party leader, Peter Robinson, started the movement away from domination by the Free Presbyterians, and the current DUP leader, Arlene Foster, is a member of the Episcopalian-linked Church of Ireland. Nonetheless, the party’s association with a particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity has shaped many of its political positions (including not only hostility to Catholic Irish nationalism, but to homosexuality too).
The DUP is finding its feet again
After Paisley’s departure as party leader, the DUP had some difficult times. Robinson had been Paisley’s right-hand man for decades, but struggled to fill the shoes of his more charismatic predecessor, especially after becoming embroiled in a financial scandal involving his wife Iris Robinson’s 19-year-old lover. Robinson’s successor, Foster, faced her own less salacious scandal involving a government incentive scheme that ended up costing vastly more than expected, leading to instability in Northern Ireland’s governing executive. However, the DUP did very well in Thursday’s election, not only nearly eliminating the rival Ulster Unionist Party, but also doing so by apparently attracting a surge of new voters. A cooperative relationship with the Conservative Party is likely to strengthen the DUP’s position.
The DUP opposes abortion and gay marriage
European conservatives, unlike US conservatives, have mostly accepted abortion and gay rights. The DUP’s neighbors in the Republic of Ireland have a conservative government – but one which is now led by an openly gay man, who is contemplating a limited relaxation of Ireland’s constitutional near-ban on abortion. Scotland’s Conservative party is led by a gay Protestant woman who is about to marry her Irish Catholic partner.
The DUP stands outside this European mainstream. In the 1970s, it notoriously led a ‘Save Ulster from Sodomy’ campaign, and DUP members still regularly make homophobic comments. Iris Robinson, for example, has described homosexuality as “disgusting, loathsome, nauseating, wicked and vile.” Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the United Kingdom, has an effective ban on abortion, which has been maintained in large part thanks to DUP support.
The DUP will surely use its bargaining position to keep same-sex marriage and abortion out of Northern Ireland. It is unlikely that it will be able to extend its social values to the rest of the UK, given opposition from Scottish Conservatives, and the more general tacit belief of UK mainland Conservatives that nineteenth century morality is not a vote-winner. The DUP is also likely to press for money. Northern Ireland’s economy depends heavily on public spending that is subsidized by the United Kingdom as a whole, and the DUP will be pressing for more of it, which they can then take credit for with voters.
DUP support might have implications for Brexit.
Northern Ireland has been put in a particularly tricky position by Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. Northern Ireland’s economy is linked both to the British economy and to that of the Republic of Ireland, which will remain a European Union member. Therefore, economic relationships would become far more complex if there were a “hard border” set between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
This situation could also have implications for the peace deal in the North, which was facilitated by the fact that both the United Kingdom and Ireland are member nations of the EU. The DUP is pulled in both directions on the EU – in practice it wants a ‘soft Brexit,’ which would involve an amicable deal between the EU and UK on issues such as customs, but in principle it has been quite hostile to the EU as a political entity.
The practical reason it wants the UK to make a deal on Brexit is because it wants to undercut Sinn Fein and Northern republicans. Sinn Fein wants a border deal where Northern Ireland would have special status, with unique arrangements for the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This would lessen the impact of Brexit and possibly dissociate Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, pushing a little further towards an eventual united Republic of Ireland. For Sinn Fein, the best outcome is one that clearly separates Northern Ireland from the UK, providing a wedge that can be used to separate Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and push it towards the Republic.
The DUP, in contrast, has demanded that there be no special status for Northern Ireland as part of its deal. It wants the border question to be resolved, both because of the economic interests of DUP voters who would be hurt by a closed border, and because questions over the border can be exploited by Sinn Fein. This means that it wants Brexit to involve a deal on customs and immigration that would not have a special carveout for Northern Ireland, but instead involve a blanket arrangement for all of the United Kingdom.
However, if the DUP’s head says that a soft Brexit deal is a good idea, its heart is anti-EU. The DUP’s leader, Ian Paisley believed that the EU was (as described in a paper on his website) a secret Catholic plot to dominate Europe. During the Brexit campaign, the DUP received a somewhat mysterious large donation, which it used to fund a newspaper supplement in the mainland UK arguing for Brexit. While it is probable that the DUP will work towards a soft Brexit as it has claimed in public, strengthening the hand of those Conservatives who want a mutually agreeable accommodation with the E.U, there are close informal connections between the DUP and hardline pro-Brexiters, which will likely lead to continued speculation about what’s actually going on.
[An earlier version of this post was published on June 9, 2017].


Will Brexit drive Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom?

Michel Barnier, center, the European Commission’s Brexit chief negotiator, and Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan, right, and others pause at the border separating Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic on May 12 in Monaghan, Ireland. (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images) Judy Dempsey is the author of “Das Phänomen Merkel” (Körber-Stiftung, 2013). She also edits the Carnegie Endowment’s Strategic Europe blog. During the run-up to Ireland and Britain joining the European Union in 1973, my high school class in Dublin was completely divided over the merits of joining Europe. On one side were the nationalists. They said we would lose our language and our identity. On the other side were a group of passionate supporters of Europe. Here was our chance to break our economic, political and social dependence on Britain and become part of the European continent. Little did we know at the time what impact Irish and British membership of the E.U. would have on the conflict in the British-ruled province of Northern Ireland. Back then, it was mired in sectarianism, violence and the apparently irreconcilable demands of the nationalists, who wanted unification with Dublin, and the unionists, who wanted to remain under the British Crown. But Britain’s decision to leave the E.U. is already having a profound impact on the two parts of Ireland and the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom itself. Unless British Prime Minister Theresa May grasps the implications, Brexit could precipitate the breakup of the United Kingdom. The Northern Irish might choose to find their way back to Europe by uniting with the South. If Northern Ireland opts to remain within the U.K., that could lead to a hard border between the North and the South and a whole host of corresponding new problems, above all calling into question the Good Friday Agreement. Such uncertainty could reignite tensions between nationalists and unionists. “In terms of the Brexit debate on the U.K. mainland, nobody cares about the implications for Northern Ireland,” said Eunan O’Halpin, professor of contemporary Irish history at Trinity College, Dublin. But the citizens of the province clearly do. The Good Friday Agreement allows the people of Northern Ireland “to identify themselves as Irish or British.” This means that the 1.8 million people in the province can hold both British and Irish citizenship. The applications from Northern Ireland are also driven by fears that Brexit would lead to a “hard border” like the one

Michel Barnier, center, the European Commission’s Brexit chief negotiator, and Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan, right, and others pause at the border separating Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic on May 12 in Monaghan, Ireland. (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
Judy Dempsey is the author of “Das Phänomen Merkel” (Körber-Stiftung, 2013). She also edits the Carnegie Endowment’s Strategic Europe blog.
During the run-up to Ireland and Britain joining the European Union in 1973, my high school class in Dublin was completely divided over the merits of joining Europe. On one side were the nationalists. They said we would lose our language and our identity. On the other side were a group of passionate supporters of Europe. Here was our chance to break our economic, political and social dependence on Britain and become part of the European continent.
Little did we know at the time what impact Irish and British membership of the E.U. would have on the conflict in the British-ruled province of Northern Ireland. Back then, it was mired in sectarianism, violence and the apparently irreconcilable demands of the nationalists, who wanted unification with Dublin, and the unionists, who wanted to remain under the British Crown.
E.U. membership, however, gave Ireland a new and wider perspective that was no longer confined to Britain. That, plus enlightened leadership from London and Dublin and Washington and Belfast, led to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Peace, however uneasy, descended on Northern Ireland.
But Britain’s decision to leave the E.U. is already having a profound impact on the two parts of Ireland and the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom itself.
Unless British Prime Minister Theresa May grasps the implications, Brexit could precipitate the breakup of the United Kingdom. The Northern Irish might choose to find their way back to Europe by uniting with the South. If Northern Ireland opts to remain within the U.K., that could lead to a hard border between the North and the South and a whole host of corresponding new problems, above all calling into question the Good Friday Agreement. Such uncertainty could reignite tensions between nationalists and unionists.
“In terms of the Brexit debate on the U.K. mainland, nobody cares about the implications for Northern Ireland,” said Eunan O’Halpin, professor of contemporary Irish history at Trinity College, Dublin. But the citizens of the province clearly do.
The Good Friday Agreement allows the people of Northern Ireland “to identify themselves as Irish or British.” This means that the 1.8 million people in the province can hold both British and Irish citizenship.
Having both didn’t become an issue until the Brexit vote of June 2016. In Northern Ireland, 56 percent chose to stay in the E.U. Since then, there been a notable uptick in the number of people from Northern Ireland applying for Irish citizenship, from 3,973 applications in January 2016 to 7,045 a year later. An Irish passport is an E.U. passport.
The applications from Northern Ireland are also driven by fears that Brexit would lead to a “hard border” like the one that existed before the Good Friday Agreement, when a heavily fortified border divided the island. Since 1998, the island of Ireland became seamless. The E.U.’s cherished four freedoms of labor, capital, goods and services became a reality. Some 60,000 people now move each day across the invisible borders. Trade is flourishing, as are cultural and social links. Brexit could bring that to a halt.
The prospects of a hard border haunt the government in Dublin and the communities in Northern Ireland. For one thing, unless special arrangements for Northern Ireland are agreed upon by Brussels, E.U. funds — which jumped since the Good Friday Agreement and have totaled nearly $7.9 billion between 2007 and 2020 — would dry up. Britain itself, of course, would no longer be eligible for E.U. funds aimed at supporting poorer regions and agriculture.
Second, nationalists in Northern Ireland might campaign for unification with the Republic in order to remain in the E.U. — and thus realize their goal. But unionists who oppose unification would feel threatened. “The Brexit process is helping nationalists consolidate their vote,” said David Phinnemore, professor of European politics at Queen’s University, Belfast. “The unionists are not ready for unification. Not at all. For many unionists, the Crown is far more important than the E.U.,” Phinnemore added. As if London cares.
Edna Kenny, the Irish prime minister, knows his British counterpart May has little interest in Northern Ireland. He has embarked on a big diplomatic offensive in Brussels and with the E.U. member states to lobby for a soft border — and put the idea of unification on the minds of E.U. leaders.
On April 29, during a summit of E.U. leaders in Brussels, 27 of them endorsed the “Kenny Text” anchored in the Good Friday Agreement. It states that the Good Friday Agreement “provides for an agreed mechanism whereby a united Ireland may be brought about through peaceful and democratic means. In this regard, the European Council acknowledges that, in accordance with international law, the entire territory of such a united Ireland would thus be part of the European Union.”
The possibility of Irish unification isn’t the only potential challenge to the continued existence of the United Kingdom, of course. The Scots, who also wish to remain in the E.U., are already planning another referendum on independence. One wonders if May is truly aware of the gravity of the threat that faces her country.


A stampede for Irish passports in the wake of Brexit vote

LONDON — Standing on the steps of the Irish Embassy in London, Alison Rayner looked at her Irish wife and blurted out: “You’re European, and I am not!” For Rayner, a 63-year-old British jazz musician who travels around Europe, it was not a comforting thought. But like many Brits, she is considering applying for an Irish passport as a way to cling onto her E.U. citizenship following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. (iStock) Many Britons are scrambling to apply for passports from countries within the E.U., as a way to stay in the bloc even as their country waves goodbye. “It’s worth investigating if I can get Irish citizenship, because I’d like to remain European,” she said. Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan said there has been a surge in interest for passports since Britain’s vote for exit, or Brexit, from the E.U., adding that the flood of applications could impact those who have a genuine need for a passport for imminent travel. Britons can apply for Irish citizenship if they were born in Ireland or if they have a parent or grandparent who is Irish. It’s estimated that about 6 million people, about 10 percent of the British population, have Irish heritage. But there is an immediate panic in the air over what will happen. Support for applying for an Irish passport has come from unlikely places. Ian Paisley Jr., a Parliament member and son of one of Northern Ireland’s most famous politicians of the same name, urged followers on Twitter to get a second passport if possible. This surprised many people, given he was also a strong advocate for Brexit. “My advice is if you are entitled to a second passport, then take one,” he wrote on Twitter. My advice is if you are entitled to second passport then take one. I sign off lots of applications for constituents https://t.co/oWoiVIFF8A At Ireland’s passport office in West London on Tuesday, there was a steady stream of people arriving to drop off passport applications. Many said they were there because of Brexit. One woman and her 14-year-old nephew were carrying a stack of about 20 applications to give to friends and relatives in Northern Ireland. An employee at the office, who didn’t want to be named, noted that “it could take three years to sort all of this out. People don’t all have to come in one day, like

LONDON — Standing on the steps of the Irish Embassy in London, Alison Rayner looked at her Irish wife and blurted out: “You’re European, and I am not!”
For Rayner, a 63-year-old British jazz musician who travels around Europe, it was not a comforting thought. But like many Brits, she is considering applying for an Irish passport as a way to cling onto her E.U. citizenship following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.
(iStock)
Many Britons are scrambling to apply for passports from countries within the E.U., as a way to stay in the bloc even as their country waves goodbye.
“It’s worth investigating if I can get Irish citizenship, because I’d like to remain European,” she said.
Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan said there has been a surge in interest for passports since Britain’s vote for exit, or Brexit, from the E.U., adding that the flood of applications could impact those who have a genuine need for a passport for imminent travel.
“An unnecessary surge in applications for Irish passports will place significant pressure on the system and on turnaround times and is likely to impact those with a genuine need for passports to facilitate imminent travel plans,” he said in a statement.
Britons can apply for Irish citizenship if they were born in Ireland or if they have a parent or grandparent who is Irish. It’s estimated that about 6 million people, about 10 percent of the British population, have Irish heritage.
For now, Britain is still a part of the European Union, and until that changes, Britain’s burgundy passport will read “European Union” at the top. Britain has not yet triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the the formal process by which member states can leave.
But there is an immediate panic in the air over what will happen.
“How to get an Irish passport,” was one of the most Googled phrases after the referendum result last week. Over the weekend, a post office in Belfast, Northern Ireland, posted a notice saying it had temporarily run out of passport forms.
Support for applying for an Irish passport has come from unlikely places. Ian Paisley Jr., a Parliament member and son of one of Northern Ireland’s most famous politicians of the same name, urged followers on Twitter to get a second passport if possible.
This surprised many people, given he was also a strong advocate for Brexit.
“My advice is if you are entitled to a second passport, then take one,” he wrote on Twitter.
My advice is if you are entitled to second passport then take one. I sign off lots of applications for constituents  https://t.co/oWoiVIFF8A
At Ireland’s passport office in West London on Tuesday, there was a steady stream of people arriving to drop off passport applications. Many said they were there because of Brexit. One woman and her 14-year-old nephew were carrying a stack of about 20 applications to give to friends and relatives in Northern Ireland.
An employee at the office, who didn’t want to be named, noted that “it could take three years to sort all of this out. People don’t all have to come in one day, like they have.”
While Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and thus must abide by the Brexit referendum, the majority of residents there voted to remain in the E.U. And under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, the 1998 landmark accord that ended decades of bloodshed, anybody living in Northern Ireland can apply for a British or Irish passport.
Michael Walkington, 50, a Londoner born in Northern Ireland, said he was applying for an Irish passport so that his two children would have the same access to jobs and education opportunities that they do now. As members of the E.U., Irish citizens can live and work in 27 member states.
“It may still be possible to do those things in the future, but we feel it would be more bureaucratic,” he said.
Sheila Steele, a Londoner with bright blue eyes, said that she decided to apply for an Irish passport after the “dreadful” referendum result.
“I thought about it before, my mother was Irish, but when Brexit happened, I thought, ‘that’s it,’ ” said Steele, a retired market researcher in her 70s.
She was clutching documents that allow her to track her passport, which she was told would arrive in about eight weeks.
“I don’t feel British, I feel European,” she said.
Read more:
What a real ‘Brexit Britain’ would look like
Brexit prompts a push to end English in the European Union
Britain confronts a wave of racist incidents after the Brexit vote


How the Northern Irish Unionists might save Theresa May’s bacon

win 319 seats in Thursday’s snap election, seven short of the 326 needed for a majority in parliament. That certainly wasn’t her plan. And so May has spent the dawn hours at 10 Downing Street ringing her counterparts at the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, which won 10 seats. On the surface, the Irish unionists have much in common with the Tories. They’re traditionalists — God save the queen and the Union Jack. They are also more socially conservative than the Tories. They’ve vetoed same-sex marriage proposals and opposed access to abortion services. Their critics say the unionists are supported by paramilitary groups. And they really dislike Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. The Tories say May has struck a deal — what they are calling “an understanding” — with the Democratic Unionist Party. But this support comes at a price. Northern Ireland as a whole voted strongly in favor of remaining in the European Union in the vote last June, by a majority of 56 percent to 44 percent. Unionist leaders urged their constituents to vote Leave, but the ballots among their own supporters were divided. In the aftermath of the vote to leave the European bloc, DUP politicos have pushed for a kinder, gentler Brexit, and one that takes into account the unique history and geography of Ireland. Remember that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom — along with England, Wales and Scotland — and shares a long porous border with E.U. member Ireland to the south. That border was a kind of no man’s land, populated by British soldiers, gunmen and smugglers during the decades of battles against the Irish Republican Army. It was only 15 years ago that the last bomb exploded in the long conflict between British security forces and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups and the Irish Republican Army. More than 3,500 people were killed during the Troubles, half of them civilians. Nobody wants to see its return, but there are fears on both sides that Brexit could awake old demons — and usher in a “hard border,” with customs checkpoints and immigration controls. Arlene Foster, leader of the DUP, has warned both against a hard border and a hard Brexit. In the party’s 2017 election manifesto, a top promise was: “Work to get the best Brexit deal for Northern Ireland.” It appears they are now in a good position to push for that.

Arlene Foster, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, speaks to members of the media outside Stormont Parliament Buildings in Belfast on March 6. (Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)
LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May thought she would sweep elections with a broad mandate to run the exit negotiations with the European Union, but it did not work out that way.
Now it appears that a little party in Northern Ireland needs to come to the Tory’s rescue.
May’s Conservative Party is forecast to win 319 seats in Thursday’s snap election, seven short of the 326 needed for a majority in parliament. That certainly wasn’t her plan.
And so May has spent the dawn hours at 10 Downing Street ringing her counterparts at the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, which won 10 seats.
On the surface, the Irish unionists have much in common with the Tories. They’re traditionalists — God save the queen and the Union Jack. They are also more socially conservative than the Tories. They’ve vetoed same-sex marriage proposals and opposed access to abortion services. Their critics say the unionists are supported by paramilitary groups. And they really dislike Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The Tories say May has struck a deal — what they are calling “an understanding” — with the Democratic Unionist Party.
A DUP source told the Guardian newspaper, “We want there to be a government. We have worked well with May. The alternative is intolerable. For as long as Corbyn leads Labour, we will ensure there’s a Tory PM.”
But this support comes at a price.
Northern Ireland as a whole voted strongly in favor of remaining in the European Union in the vote last June, by a majority of 56 percent to 44 percent. Unionist leaders urged their constituents to vote Leave, but the ballots among their own supporters were divided.
In the aftermath of the vote to leave the European bloc, DUP politicos have pushed for a kinder, gentler Brexit, and one that takes into account the unique history and geography of Ireland.
Remember that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom — along with England, Wales and Scotland — and shares a long porous border with E.U. member Ireland to the south.
That border was a kind of no man’s land, populated by British soldiers, gunmen and smugglers during the decades of battles against the Irish Republican Army.
As The Washington Post reported last year, more than 180 formal roads cross that border — many more if you count tractor trails and foot paths. Most of the time, a traveler barely sees a sign noting the change in countries. This will now become Europe’s back door to Britain and vice versa.
It was only 15 years ago that the last bomb exploded in the long conflict between British security forces and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups and the Irish Republican Army. More than 3,500 people were killed during the Troubles, half of them civilians.
Nobody wants to see its return, but there are fears on both sides that Brexit could awake old demons — and usher in a “hard border,” with customs checkpoints and immigration controls.
Arlene Foster, leader of the DUP, has warned both against a hard border and a hard Brexit. In the party’s 2017 election manifesto, a top promise was: “Work to get the best Brexit deal for Northern Ireland.” It appears they are now in a good position to push for that.


If Boris Johnson gets his Brexit, it may break the United Kingdom

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In his first speech last week as Britain’s new leader, Prime Minister Boris Johnson exhibited his customary bravado
But already, it’s Johnson who is starting to look like the prime minister with no clothes.
On Tuesday, the British pound dropped to its lowest level in two years, a reaction to growing alarm over the likelihood of Johnson’s government crashing Britain out of Europe in a “no-deal” Brexit. His cabinet is packed with hard-line Brexiteers who, like Johnson, want to see Brexit achieved at almost any cost. One minister has already indicated that the government is operating under the “assumption” that it must prepare for a “no-deal” departure: a scenario that would see tariffs immediately slapped on British exports to the continent, financial chaos, lines and delays at border checks, and an endless assortment of other (in some cases, still unforeseen) problems.
Johnson, undaunted, has engaged in a game of brinkmanship with Brussels and Dublin. Over the weekend, he talked tough on his Brexit intentions, voicing his opposition to the “Irish backstop” — the current understanding forged between Britain and the European Union that would preserve a soft border between Ireland and Northern Ireland and therefore theoretically keep all of Britain in the E.U.’s customs union.
European diplomats insist that the current withdrawal agreement, including the conditions around the Irish border — the subject of months of painstaking talks between Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, and the E.U.’s 27 other member states — is not up for renegotiation. Johnson resents their intransigence and has said he won’t meet with E.U. leaders until they reconsider their position on the backstop.
Officials in Brussels, meanwhile, may be hoping that Johnson is compelled to blink first and that Britain’s Parliament acts to block a no-deal Brexit. That also may be a scenario Johnson actually wants. Another impasse at Westminster could prompt a snap general election that may yield a Parliament more inclined to back Johnson’s agenda.
“The most likely scenario is Boris goes off to Brussels, Brussels says no, Boris says: ‘Brussels is dictating to us. We want to do a deal, but they won’t let us do a deal,’” University of Nottingham politics professor Steven Fielding told the Associated Press. “Ramping all of that up and then saying, ‘Come and support me on the road to our glorious Brexit’ — and call an election.”
But the domestic picture for Johnson is hardly rosy, either.
"The people of Scotland did not vote for this Tory government, they didn’t vote for this new prime minister, they didn’t vote for Brexit, and they certainly didn’t vote for a catastrophic no-deal Brexit, which Boris Johnson is now planning for,” Sturgeon said before his arrival. As my colleagues reported, the chaos and damage of a “no-deal” Brexit may speed calls for a new independence referendum in Scotland — a cause backed by Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party.
The next day in Wales, Johnson met a similarly dubious Welsh first minister. Mark Drakeford, a member of the opposition Labour Party, warned in an interview with the Guardian that a no-deal Brexit would endanger Wales’s agricultural and manufacturing sectors and “a whole way of life that has existed for centuries.” He stressed that Johnson’s characteristic “bluff and bluster” was testing the unity of the United Kingdom itself.
“I think the union that is the United Kingdom is more at risk today than at any time in my political lifetime,” he said, pointing to how both Scotland and Northern Ireland overwhelmingly voted to remain in the European Union.
Johnson will travel to Belfast on Wednesday in the final swing of his national tour.
“The prime minister’s twin ambitions are on a dangerous collision course,” noted an editorial in the Financial Times, referring to Johnson’s stated desire to both strengthen ties among Britain’s four home nations and lead the country swiftly out of the European Union. “Brexit in any shape promises to weaken the bonds between the nations of the British Isles. In the extreme form that seems to be the working assumption by Johnson’s new administration, it will impose intolerable strains. This could set in train a process that ends with the break-up of the union.”
The most intolerable strain would lie across the Irish Sea. A Brexit that doesn’t include an Irish backstop could stoke old tensions, explained my colleague Siobhán O’Grady: “The border is a highly sensitive issue in Ireland because its current arrangement was negotiated as part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that put an end to the 30-year period known as ‘the Troubles.’ During that time, sectarian violence between Unionists, who wanted Northern Ireland to stay part of the United Kingdom, and Nationalists, who wanted it to belong to the Republic of Ireland, left more than 3,500 dead. Now, there are fears that the reinstatement of tight border controls between the two sides could ignite a dangerous new wave of tensions reminiscent of that era.”
That’s why officials in Dublin and Brussels consider the backstop nonnegotiable. On Tuesday, almost a full week after taking office, Johnson placed his first phone call to Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. Their exchange was reportedly “testy” and not particularly productive. According to an Irish readout, Varadkar reminded Johnson that the backstop was “a consequence” of Britain’s political decision to embark on Brexit and that Ireland had the full strength of the E.U. behind it.
On Friday, Varadkar hinted at the possibility of Northern Ireland severing its ties with the United Kingdom in the event of a no-deal Brexit. “I think increasingly you see liberal Protestants and Unionists who will start to ask where they feel more at home,” he said. “One of the things that ironically could really undermine the union of the U.K. is a hard Brexit, both for Northern Ireland and for Scotland, and that is a problem they are going to have to face.”
Not for nothing did former British prime minister Gordon Brown remark at a London event last week that Johnson could be remembered “not as the 55th prime minister of the U.K. but as the first prime minister of England.”
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Brexit: The next big 5 things to watch

The divorce negotiations may go to the wire.
The negotiations over the British withdrawal from the European Union were supposed to be over by now. But the October European summit came and went without a deal. And a much-hyped challenge to Prime Minister Theresa May’s leadership fizzled out Wednesday, in part thanks to the reaction to the gruesome off-the-record language from critics in her party.
The Brexit process remains a multilevel negotiation, where actors send out signals and seek to frame the discussions to rally support, obfuscate and intimidate. With just over 150 days to go until Britain is due to leave the European Union, here are five things to watch:
1. Can Theresa May deal with Tory MPs?
Divisions over Europe
The government is trying to persuade Conservative “Remainers” that the alternative “no deal” exit is far too costly for Britain. And they are communicating to members of the pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERG) that voting down the deal might create the conditions for another referendum, which might lead to Brexit not happening at all. And, of course, the government is holding out the dire prospect that defeat for a Brexit vote in the House of Commons might herald a new election — and a Labour government headed by Jeremy Corbyn.
Will May’s tactics work? For some Conservative MPs, the Brexit issue matters more than party unity, whatever threats are leveled. Pro-remain MPs such as Anna Soubry and Ken Clarke are likely to attempt to bring about another referendum. The ERG contains a number of MPs who see any concession to Brussels as a betrayal of the 2016 referendum.
Despite this opposition within the Tory side, it is far from clear there is a sufficient or unified pull to depose the prime minister. But its refusal to support the government causes problems in Parliament and may yet lead to a defeat over Brexit.
2
Any Brexit deal requires the support of Parliament, but the Conservatives do not have a majority in the House of Commons — even if every Tory backed Theresa May. How Northern Ireland is treated in the final withdrawal agreement will matter greatly — can May rely on the critical support of the Democratic Unionist Party?
And the Labour Party has its own divisions — some MPs will back the government’s leave plan. Some are pro-remain but argue that an acceptable deal would be better than the prospect of a no-deal outcome. Others still will vote against any deal, hoping to secure another referendum.
Calculating the numbers is devilishly difficult, with many MPs publicly undecided on how they intend to vote — many, of course, want to see whatever deal materializes before they decide. And there is another complication. Some Labour MPs might feel constrained from supporting the Brexit deal by a fear of rebellion in their own constituencies. The recent Labour Party conference passed a change to party rules, making it easier to challenge a sitting MP. Those seen to be supporting a Tory government over Brexit might find themselves early test cases of the new procedures.
3. Public opinion shows profound divisions
Yes, 700,000 pro-remainers took to the streets of London this month to demand a “people’s vote” on any Brexit deal. Yet public opinion remains largely stable and profoundly divided over Brexit.
Recent data suggest a slight shift toward remain. However, this shift seems to be made up mainly of people who either did not or could not vote in 2016, now stating that they would vote in this way, rather than leavers changing their minds.
It’s also far from obvious how such a vote would come about. In the event that Parliament could not agree on a Brexit deal, it is conceivable that MPs might opt to delegate the decision to the public. But this would require an extension to the Article 50 process, and it’s not clear Parliament could agree on the form of question to be asked.
4. Ireland’s border is a huge question
The Irish border has become the most intractable issue in the withdrawal negotiations, as Northern Ireland is part of Britain, but the Republic of Ireland is, and will remain, an E.U. member. Whatever Brexit deal is struck (or not) will have a significant impact on trade and security. However, for the Democratic Unionists, a Northern Ireland party whose votes give May a majority in Parliament, it is also integral to questions of identity and their place in Britain.
The remaining E.U. member states have been solidly behind the Irish government, refusing to countenance signing off a withdrawal agreement unless it contains an Irish “backstop” that would keep Northern Ireland in the customs union and parts of the single market to avoid an internal Irish border even in the event of a “hard Brexit.” There is still some hope in London that Dublin might agree to a slight softening of the language around the backstop, if only because the Republic of Ireland would be the member state worst affected by a no-deal outcome. As of yet, however, there seems little sign of this happening.
5. And the E.U. has other worries
Brexit is not the only or even the top priority for the E.U. Concerns over migration and the continuing demands of euro-zone governance tend to take priority. The other 27 E.U. states have been happy to entrust the process to their chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, thereby ensuring continued unity. And, of course, member states also have been keen to benchmark Brexit as an unfavorable outcome for any state considering following suit.
However, the actual prospect of Brexit may start to sharpen minds. A punitive Brexit could have long-term political and economic consequences not just for relations between the E.U. and Britain but also the wider geopolitical and security landscape in Europe. If the British people felt they were being punished by the E.U., support not only for European integration, but conceivably also for solidarity within NATO, might weaken.
European negotiations have a habit of going to the wire — and Brexit will be no different. But with Brexit, there is a legally defined end date — March 29, 2019 — and the default outcome is not the status quo ante but a no-deal scenario that would be profoundly damaging. The stakes, then, could not be higher.
Tim Haughton


How the E.U.’s ruling on Apple explains why Brexit happened

of the debate across the Irish Sea in Britain during the lead-up to the referendum on E.U. membership in June centered on the idea that bureaucrats with no allegiance to Britain were sitting in Brussels and writing their laws. Proponents of a "Brexit" argued that leaving the E.U. would allow the country to "take back control" of its economy and borders. Others began using the hashtag #Irexit, or argued that it was the E.U., and not Ireland, that had broken its treaty obligations to its member-state. This kind of ruling will foment Irish resentment against the EU. #Irexit? cc @Fox_Claire https://t.co/2MW38NXT60 The EU has just put a torpedo into Ireland's economic model & violated a treaty obligation not to interfere in Irish tax affairs. Mehmet Simsek, Turkey's deputy prime minister, even took the opportunity to suggest that Apple shift from Ireland to Turkey, which isn't a E.U. member, where he'd be "happy to provide more generous tax incentives." Apple should move to Turkey. Happy to provide more generous tax incentives. Won't have to deal with EU bureaucracy https://t.co/9ceOnauGi0 And despite the promise of an unprecedentedly large injection of tax revenue, the Irish government plans to appeal the ruling. "This is necessary to defend the integrity of our tax system, to provide tax certainty to business and to challenge the encroachment of E.U. state aid rules into the sovereign member state competence of taxation," Michael Noonan, Ireland's finance minister said in a statement. Apple will also appeal. At the core of their argument is a denial that they got special tax rates unavailable to others. "The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process," read part of a statement from Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook. The ruling, he said, would have a "profound and harmful effect on investment and job creation in Europe." "Using the Commission’s theory, every company in Ireland and across Europe is suddenly at risk of being subjected to taxes under laws that never existed," argued Cook. Much further to the left on the political spectrum, the Social Democrats, Ireland's newest political party, echoed the resentment toward Apple that many Irish citizens expressed throughout the day on social media. Read More: Eight years after they helped wreck the economy, Ireland sends 3 bankers to prison Where Europe is most and least

E.U. Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager speaks at an Aug. 25 news conference at the European Commission in Brussels. (Stephanie Leco/European Pressphoto Agency)
On Tuesday morning, the governing body of the European Union ruled that one of its members, Ireland, had broken its rules by allowing U.S.-based Apple Inc. to pay a tax rate of 1 percent — and sometimes as little as .0005 percent. Ireland's regular tax rate is 12.5 percent, and E.U. rules state that members can't give special benefits to individual companies — even the most highly valued company in the world.
Under the E.U. ruling, Apple would be required to pay Ireland more than $14.5 billion in back taxes. Both Apple and the Irish government plan to appeal.
That's is a huge amount of money for a small country like Ireland, which suffered terribly after the 2008 financial crisis and required a massive bailout from the E.U. Many in Ireland are salivating over what kind of public infrastructure or personal tax breaks $14.5 billion could be spent on. The sum is roughly equal to Ireland's entire health budget, to put it in perspective.
Others, however, see the ruling as exactly why Ireland — just like the United Kingdom did with its Brexit vote — needs to leave an interventionist, anti-sovereignty European Union.
To put the question a different way: Did Apple, in collusion with the Irish government, rip off the Irish public by arranging a huge tax break? Or did the European Union just undermine Ireland's economic model and strip the country of its competitive advantage, risking Ireland's long-term growth?
Much of the debate across the Irish Sea in Britain during the lead-up to the referendum on E.U. membership in June centered on the idea that bureaucrats with no allegiance to Britain were sitting in Brussels and writing their laws. Proponents of a "Brexit" argued that leaving the E.U. would allow the country to "take back control" of its economy and borders.
After the E.U.'s ruling on Apple and Ireland on Tuesday, one of the most outspoken Brexit leaders, Nigel Farage, tweeted that the E.U. was "anti-democratic" and "doomed," and included a video of him on a television show saying "Across the whole continent, people are saying, 'Why are our laws being made somewhere else?'"
Others began using the hashtag #Irexit, or argued that it was the E.U., and not Ireland, that had broken its treaty obligations to its member-state.
This kind of ruling will foment Irish resentment against the EU. #Irexit? cc @Fox_Claire  https://t.co/2MW38NXT60
The EU has just put a torpedo into Ireland's economic model & violated a treaty obligation not to interfere in Irish tax affairs.
Mehmet Simsek, Turkey's deputy prime minister, even took the opportunity to suggest that Apple shift from Ireland to Turkey, which isn't a E.U. member, where he'd be "happy to provide more generous tax incentives."
Apple should move to Turkey.  Happy to provide more generous tax incentives. Won't have to deal with EU bureaucracy

https://t.co/9ceOnauGi0
And despite the promise of an unprecedentedly large injection of tax revenue, the Irish government plans to appeal the ruling.
"This is necessary to defend the integrity of our tax system, to provide tax certainty to business and to challenge the encroachment of E.U. state aid rules into the sovereign member state competence of taxation," Michael Noonan, Ireland's finance minister said in a statement.
Apple will also appeal. At the core of their argument is a denial that they got special tax rates unavailable to others.
"The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process," read part of a statement from Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook. The ruling, he said, would have a "profound and harmful effect on investment and job creation in Europe."
"Using the Commission’s theory, every company in Ireland and across Europe is suddenly at risk of being subjected to taxes under laws that never existed," argued Cook.
Ireland's second and third-biggest parties seemed to align with the ruling Fine Gael party in opposing the ruling. Both the Fianna Fáil and Labour parties spokesmen stated that it was counter to their understandings of Ireland's ability to set its own tax rules and expressed worry that should the appeals fall through, multinationals would lose faith in Ireland as a destination for investment. Apple employs around 6,000 people across Ireland and made overtures that those jobs would be kept there.
Much further to the left on the political spectrum, the Social Democrats, Ireland's newest political party, echoed the resentment toward Apple that many Irish citizens expressed throughout the day on social media.
"While Small and Medium sized enterprises, which employ seven out of every 10 people in the private sector, struggled throughout the downturn, many going to the wall, this multinational giant was paying the bare minimum in tax," said a statement released on their website.
Read More:
Eight years after they helped wreck the economy, Ireland sends 3 bankers to prison
Where Europe is most and least innovative, in 6 maps
Donald Trump just called himself ‘Mr. Brexit,’ and nobody really knows why


Post-Brexit, the U.K. is in its worst political crisis since 1940

Politicians in the U.K. insist that they will move forward with the process to exit the E.U., but not everyone is happy about it. Here's what will make it a long and difficult ordeal.
On June 23, Britain voted to leave the European Union. With a much higher than expected turnout of 72 percent, close to 52 percent of the electorate voted to leave, while just over 48 percent voted to remain. The referendum fundamentally divided the country. London, Scotland, and Northern Ireland overwhelmingly voted to maintain the status quo, while the Welsh and especially the rest of England voted in large numbers to break with Brussels. The vote also showed large gaps between young and old, rich and poor, more and less educated, more and less well-traveled, as well as urban and rural. The former consistently sided with remain while the latter systematically favored leaving.
The vote left the United Kingdom, the rest of Europe and the world behind in a state of bewilderment. International financial markets went into a tailspin, wiping out close to $3 trillion in global wealth in just two trading sessions. The day after the vote — June 24 — was the worst day in global equity markets since the market collapse in September 2008 that followed the failure of Lehman Brothers. Britain’s currency, the pound sterling, crashed to its lowest level vis-à-vis the dollar since 1985. Prime Minister David Cameron, who had renegotiated Britain’s terms with the E.U. and headed the ‘remain’ campaign, announced that he planned to resign.
How can we make sense of it all?
The vote has left U.K. politics in its deepest crisis since World War II
While the “people have spoken” in favor of leaving, three-quarters of the members of the House of Commons want to remain in the E.U., suggesting that the current parliament is vastly out of touch with the people it claims to represent.
The Conservative Party’s
To choose a new Conservative Party leader, who would also serve as Britain’s next prime minister, Tory members of Parliament (MPs) have to agree on a short list of two, probably over the coming two weeks. Then the 150,000 or so party members will get to decide between the two finalists, after an internal campaign that will probably last about six weeks.
As May and Johnson jostle for the position, they will likely offer competing views on what a post-Brexit E.U. looks like, and what model — Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, Canada, or Singapore and Hong Kong — to follow in how the country relates to the E.U. in the future. Meanwhile, recent Google searches for “how to join the Conservative Party” have skyrocketed, suggesting that the contest will be unpredictable.
The Labour Party
After the results came in, many of his MPs blamed him for the large shares of “leave” voters in many of Labour’s traditional working class constituencies, as many voters were unclear as to whether Corbyn supported in or out. Just four days after the referendum, 172 of Corbyn’s 229 MPs outright rejected him in a no-confidence vote; only 40 MPs voted in support while 13 MPs did not vote.
But replacing him will prove hard, especially if he keeps his vow to fight on, as Labour’s rules consider such a vote to be nonbinding. In the meanwhile, Corbyn remains very popular among Labour’s grassroots members, who are the ones who actually decide on a new leader. In September 2015, he got a solid mandate from 61 percent of Labour members, in a four-way race that was a stinging rejection of the Party’s establishment, including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
With a leaderless government and a rudderless opposition, the U.K. would ordinarily expect a new general election.
The Fixed Term Parliament Act of 2011 stipulates a fixed five-year term for every new government. There are only two ways to call a snap election. One way is for two-thirds of the sitting House to agree that “there shall be an early parliamentary election.” Another way is for parliament to call for a motion of no confidence in “Her Majesty’s Government” by simple majority, which then can only be reversed by a vote of confidence within the next 14 days. With an absolute — though slim — majority of just 16 seats, the new Conservative leadership, expected in early September, would have to propose a “no confidence” motion in themselves.
But why would they? Keep in mind that a slim majority of current Conservative MPs opposes leaving the E.U. Many of their districts voted in large numbers for Brexit. These MPs are unlikely to favor early elections, lest they be unseated by a challenger from the right-wing nationalist U.K. Independence Party (UKIP), whose leader, Nigel Farage, was one of the main faces of the “leave” campaign.
In the meanwhile, Labour MPs feel in no position to go head-to-head with the Tories given the hapless leadership Jeremy Corbyn has provided thus far. Most MPs in traditional Labour constituencies, especially in the industrial north of England, also fear being unseated by a UKIP candidate or losing to a Tory. Furthermore, the Europe question cuts through the middle of both Conservative and Labour Parties, and is therefore an incredibly thorny issue to find common ground on in an election manifesto.
In short, the U.K. is in the midst of its worst political crisis since May 1940, when Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain to face the existential threat of Nazi Germany after the fall of France.
Brexit may undo the United Kingdom
The first casualty of the Brexit vote will probably be the union among England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than the European Union itself. While England and Wales voted “out” by a margin of 53-47, Scotland voted to stay in the EU by 62 to 38 and Northern Ireland by 56 to 44.
Scotland
Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland (the Scottish equivalent of a prime minister) and head of the Scottish National Party (SNP), has set in motion the legal process to trigger a second independence referendum within the next two years, which she hopes will allow Scotland to stay in the European Union. Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian leader of the Liberal faction in the European Parliament, has already extended an invitation to Sturgeon over Twitter to discuss the idea in Brussels, which she eagerly accepted. She also suggested that the members of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in Edinburgh could simply veto a Brexit.
Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin have called for a border poll on a united Ireland. The possibility of a border poll is a central provision of the Good Friday Agreement, which brought peace to Northern Ireland after decades of violent conflict. The U.K. government’s Northern Ireland Secretary has the power to call a poll on whether Northern Ireland should remain a part of the U.K. or should unite with the Republic of Ireland.
Just like the SNP in Scotland, Sinn Féin argues that Brexit is a “political and economic game changer.” An open border and free mobility of labor between Ireland and Northern Ireland, as well as E.U. membership for both parts of the island, were cornerstones of the 1998 peace agreement brokered by, among others, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. In short, the Brexit vote may also set off an unintended flare-up of the bitter old conflict in Northern Ireland between pro-Dublin Catholic Republicans and pro-London Protestant Unionists.
One result of Brexit therefore may be to reduce the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the “Untied Kingdom of Little England and Wales.”
Referendums expose democratic dysfunction
Political scientists have always differed on the democratic merits of holding a referendum. There have been many arguments either on the merits or the costs of referendums for both democratic process and outcome reasons. The Brexit vote reveals that a referendum on a controversial policy decision can divide a country, laying bare deep social fissures, especially along age, class, ethnic and geographic lines. The Brexit vote has also revealed that the House of Commons and most of the British economic and financial establishment are profoundly out of touch with the rest of the country they govern and control.
The more disturbing revelation is that the “leave” campaign was able to win based on a series of inaccurate statements about the E.U., outright lies about the actual cost of Brexit, false promises on the country’s post-Brexit future and overtly racist attitudes against immigration.
In my book “Ideas and Economic Crises in Britain from Attlee to Blair,” which built on the work of Sheri Berman, Mark Blyth, Colin Hay, and Kate McNamara, I argued that some ideas prevail because they can give a convincing and simplified solution to perceived problems, not necessarily because they are inherently superior. Constructing a coherent and persuasive narrative of what went wrong, who is to blame and how things will get better plays a key role in winning elections. Political scientists need to better account for ideas and identity as we model voter behavior.
Referendums are hard to undo. The E.U. does have something of a tradition of letting countries vote again if they got it wrong the first time. Even though this happened previously in the cases of Denmark and Ireland — when a new E.U. treaty was rejected and then renegotiated with the member state in question — this may not be politically feasible this time. The U.K., after all, voted to leave the E.U. altogether.
When Britain signed the Lisbon Treaty of the E.U., which came into effect in November 2009, it also agreed to the procedure of leaving the union, as stipulated in Article 50. This procedure gives two years to negotiate the terms of the divorce. However, the member state that wants to leave is the only entity that can trigger those Article 50 proceedings. The rest of Europe cannot force the U.K. to do so. Some have suggested that the U.K. may never do so, as the legal way for renegotiating and a second referendum is wide open. Angela Merkel has said she can’t speed up or slow down Brexit talks. The E.U. could be in limbo for months.
David Cameron says he will leave it up to his successor to decide when to invoke the article and start the painful process of leaving the E.U. Boris Johnson, still his most likely successor, is already appearing to backpedal. He has said he hopes not to trigger Article 50, but rather to negotiate an amicable divorce on Britain’s terms. The E.U. is unlikely to agree to that, with E.U. officials already dismissing it as a “pipe dream.” So the option of last resort would be to go back to the voters, have them reject an actual Brexit and hope the nightmare will go away.
But as I noted above, early elections are not a very attractive option for either the Conservative or the Labour Party. Of course, that may change. But right now, the referendum outcome has exposed the country’s democratic dysfunction.
Political scientists can no longer assume that European integration moves only in one direction
Political scientists’ views about European integration have traditionally divided into two camps: Ernst Haas’s “neo-functionalism” and Andrew Moravcsik’s “liberal inter-governmentalism.” The former school assumed that nations would see positive spillovers and positive feedback from initial economic cooperation and that this would lead to more integration in such areas as foreign and security policy, agriculture, the environment and judicial affairs — resulting in an ever-closer union. The latter school saw “grand bargains” pushing the E.U. forward based on the rational interests of the main interest groups in the most important member states. Further E.U. integration would be the sum total of those periodic bargains.
Both schools of thought believed the E.U. was gradually moving toward closer cooperation and eventually to some version of a United States of Europe. “Crises” were assumed to be the catalysts for major leaps forward. This argument was based on the belief of Jean Monnet — one of the E.U.’s founding fathers in the 1950s — that “Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted in those crises.”
Craig Parsons
Political scientists have as of yet no useful theories to explain and understand the centrifugal forces of potential E.U. disintegration, having thus far paid less attention to how domestic politics, identity, class and culture affect this process. They therefore need to come up with new theories. Kate McNamara’s new book “The Politics of Everyday Europe“ does a great job explaining how the European Union has successfully managed to construct authority by transforming symbols and practices in everyday European life in a rather banal way. We now need to better understand the mainly national forces that are capable of undoing this process.
Brexit could prove devastating for the future of the United Kingdom, the future of the European Union and the future of the international liberal order. The latter has been the foundation of our postwar peace and prosperity, which many now realize is much more fragile than they had taken for granted.
In late June, many celebrated the referendum results, and British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he will resign after Britons went to the polls.
Matthias Matthijs is assistant professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), author of “Ideas and Economic Crises in Britain from Attlee to Blair” (Routledge 2011) and co-editor (with Mark Blyth) of “The Future of the Euro” (OUP 2015).


Ireland becomes a test for E.U. crisis remedy

LONDON —
The decision will amount to the first public test of a new accord that would seek to enforce budget discipline throughout the region, setting strict limits on state spending to restore investor confidence in the bloc’s indebted countries. Last month, 25 of the European Union’s 27 nations — all but Britain and the Czech Republic — agreed to the German-led treaty, with the nations involved now in the process of trying to ratify it.
Yet opinion polls across Europe suggest a deepening suspicion of E.U. institutions, with surveys in Ireland particularly suggesting a wide gap between the public and its leaders over the wisdom of granting more power to authorities in Brussels.
While the new treaty appears to enjoy more support in countries such as Germany — where famously frugal taxpayers have been heavily tapped to bail out Greece, Ireland and Portugal — in Dublin and elsewhere, opponents say they see their sovereignty at stake.
“I don’t think the Irish feel we have any sovereignty left anymore,” Shay Moran, a 41-year-old unemployed semiconductor engineer and treaty opponent, said recently at Dublin’s Gravediggers pub, where Irish revolutionaries once plotted against British rule. “All I see is [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel wielding a big stick and telling us what to do.”
The move by the Irish to put the question before voters who have a history of rejecting European accords could not alone scuttle the new treaty.
Although 25 nations have agreed to the new accord, only 12 of the 17 nations that share the euro must ratify it for the treaty to come into effect. So far, only Ireland has declared that it will hold a public vote.
Yet Ireland’s announcement comes as doubts are swirling about the treaty’s backing in France, the region’s second-largest economy and without whose support many would see the treaty as effectively dead.
In Paris, the Socialist front-runner in the upcoming presidential election, Francois Hollande, has indicated that if he were elected in May, he would renegotiate the treaty to include measures oriented toward promoting growth in European economies — something the Germans continue to strongly oppose. The Irish referendum, analysts said, amounts to a further complication to a treaty meant to prevent another European debt crisis and that was used to persuade German politicians this week to support a costly second bailout for near-bankrupt Greece.
More important, a rejection of the treaty by the Irish people would put any future bailouts in jeopardy. Under a 2010 deal, Ireland is scheduled to receive rescue funds through next year. But analysts say that, like Greece, Dublin may require another rescue package — one it could effectively be barred from getting if the treaty is voted down. Ireland’s prime minister, Enda Kenny, who strongly backs the treaty, described the referendum on Tuesday as an “opportunity to reaffirm Ireland’s commitment to membership of the euro.”
“The Irish people can confirm our commitment to responsible budgeting and ensure that the reckless economic mismanagement that drove our country to the brink of bankruptcy will not be repeated,” he said, laying the blame on the previous government.
Polls: Vote too close to call
European and Irish government officials had desperately hoped to avoid a referendum.
Irish voters have twice rejected key E.U. treaties — in 2001 and 2008 — although both accords were ultimately approved in second referendums after Dublin won a number of concessions. Recent Irish opinion polls have shown that a vote on the new European fiscal pact would be too close to call.
But a ruling by the Irish attorney general indicated that under the national constitution, Ireland could not ratify the accord without a referendum. Although a date has not been announced, the vote is expected to take place by June.
The campaign to pass the treaty in Ireland, experts say, is likely to be aided by the growing realization in European capitals that the accord amounts to a paper tiger, with any harsh penalties for violators coming only after a laborious, bureaucratic process.
But in Ireland, the referendum on the treaty is also likely to be seen as a proxy vote on the tough austerity imposed on Ireland by its lenders at the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank as part of a three-year bailout deal struck in 2010.
Always different from the one in Greece, the Irish crisis was sparked not by runaway government spending and faked economic figures, but by a U.S.-style property bubble that led to the near-collapse of the banking system. In sharp contrast to the Greeks, since being bailed out, Ireland has been portrayed by its lenders as a model, with the Irish so far succeeding in cutting the deficit, improving competitiveness and restoring their country to growth.
Demands ‘just aren’t fair’
But many in Ireland say the recovery here looks better on paper than it does in real life, raising fresh doubts about the country’s ability to regain market confidence by the time its $112 billion bailout runs out next year. Some economists are suggesting that, like Greece, Ireland may be forced into a second massive bailout despite its recent gains.
E.U. estimates suggest that Ireland’s economy grew by almost 1 percent in 2011. But that figure is pumped up by profits from multinationals such as eBay, Facebook and Google that use Ireland for its low corporate tax rates and tend to repatriate a good portion of those profits while employing only 7 percent of the Irish workforce.
After stripping those numbers out, the Irish economy appears to have actually suffered a mild recession last year. Consumer spending, retail sales and bank credit have dried up with few signs of recovery. The Irish unemployment rate remains near modern highs, above 14 percent.
Few in Ireland are seriously debating the need to reduce spending and close the budget gap. But opponents of strict austerity insist that a focus on deep and quick cuts, mixed with markedly higher sales and new property taxes, has hampered the nation’s return to robust growth. That, many here argue, would only continue for years if Ireland agrees to the new European treaty.
For some, such as Cian Dowling, 20, a bright-eyed engineering major at University College Dublin, it has meant rethinking a commitment to education. New cuts to university subsidies mean that he will now have to pay $8,000 or more a year out of pocket for a master’s degree in a country with no U.S.-style student loan programs. Like tens of thousands of young Irish escaping dwindling domestic opportunity, he is considering a life overseas, possibly in New Zealand.
“What they’re really doing is telling young people like me that we can’t get higher educations anymore,” he said. “But wasn’t a lack of education Ireland’s problem in the past?”
He continued: “I feel like these demands from Europe for cuts just aren’t fair. Isn’t it better to try to help us get back on our feet rather than knocking us down again?”
Special correspondent Brendan Howard in Dublin contributed to this report.
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Fear in Northern Ireland, as Boris Johnson threatens the E.U. over Brexit

BELFAST —
Boris Johnson is moving forward on his threat to override the Brexit withdrawal agreement with the European Union — a move that every living former British prime minister warns against — and the people of Northern Ireland again find themselves fearful that decisions made in London and Brussels could upend the hard-won peace and prosperity on their island.
Britain will leave the European Union at the end of 2020, with or without a new free-trade deal, Johnson promises. With just over three months to go before the end of a transition period, a pact between the sides seems as far away as ever. Relations between Europe and Britain have grown shouty, underlining the high stakes of the showdown, as Britain and Europe both struggle to recover from deep pandemic recessions.
Rachel Powell grew up in South Armagh, where during the Troubles a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was patrolled by British troops, often attacked by Irish republican militants. She said she’s deeply concerned about what will happen next.
“The British government has not got a clue about what it is like to live on the border, and it is again using it as a political football,” said Powell, a lobbyist with the Women’s Resource and Development Agency in Belfast.
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement brought peace to Ireland — and today the line marking the boundary between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is invisible.
Powell said border communities are “horrified” over the uncertainties and brinkmanship of Brexit.
In the past week, Johnson started to deploy martial language, asserting that the E.U. is plotting to “carve up our country” and to choke off food supplies with destabilizing new barriers between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
“Unless we agree to the E.U.’s terms, the E.U. will use an extreme interpretation of the Northern Ireland protocol to impose a full-scale trade border down the Irish Sea,” Johnson wrote in the Telegraph newspaper.
Irish Foreign Affairs Secretary Simon Coveney dismissed Johnson’s claim that Europe wanted to “blockade” Northern Ireland as “totally bogus.”
Europeans are livid that Johnson has introduced a bill before Parliament that would breach key parts of the Brexit withdrawal treaty, an agreement Johnson signed only nine months ago, calling the pact “historic” and “fantastic.”
The deal seeks to finesse trade and customs issues to enable Northern Ireland to exit along with the rest of the United Kingdom but to preserve easy trade — and psychological ties — with the Republic of Ireland, which will remain part of the E.U. In the absence of a free-trade deal, there would probably have to be some kind of controls between north and south to levy tariffs and quotas.
Chief E.U. negotiator Michel Barnier said the Northern Ireland protocol signed last year represents no threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom. He tweeted, “We agreed this delicate compromise with [Boris Johnson] & his gov in order to protect peace & stability on island of Ireland. We could not have been clearer about the consequences of #Brexit.”
Martin O’Brien is a veteran peace-building activist from north Belfast, who worked to ensure that strong human rights were included in the Good Friday Agreement. “Brexit — and this government’s particular form of Brexit, a hard Brexit — was embarked on with no regard to the consequences for Northern Ireland,” he said.
O’Brien called the withdrawal agreement signed by the U.K. and E.U. last year “a carefully constructed mechanism to try to minimize the worst consequences” of Brexit.
“Now the government has decided to go back on the compromise and, again, that is hugely destabilizing,” he said.
Queen’s University Belfast professor Katy Hayward said, “We should be familiar with this by now, the stirring up of a political storm over Northern Ireland and its place after Brexit, but we are no less weary of it.”
She said that “the anxieties are only growing. . . . We face the prospect of the U.K. flagrantly breaking international law and using Northern Ireland’s position as justification for it. This sets a whole new precedent. And it bodes very badly for peace.”
During the Troubles, more than 3,500 people were killed, over half of them civilians.
Brandon Lewis, Johnson’s minister for Northern Ireland, admitted to the House of Commons last week that the new bill to amend the Brexit deal with Europe will “break international law,” but, he said, only in a “specific and limited way.”
Johnson’s move has set off alarms in the U.S. Congress, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warning that today’s open border between north and south must be preserved at all costs. Undermine the Good Friday pact, Pelosi said, and “there will be absolutely no chance of a U.S.-U.K. trade agreement passing the Congress.”
If Britain and Europe are unable to sign a trade deal by year’s end, then World Trade Organization rules would apply to goods traded between the E.U. and the U.K., with tariffs and quotas levied in both directions. Supply chains 40 years in the making could be derailed.
On the island of Ireland, there is growing anxiety that Johnson is hurtling toward a no-deal Brexit.
“Securing a ‘zero tariff, zero quota’ free-trade agreement with the E.U. remains critical to the future of U.K. businesses,” said Ann McGregor, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “We urge ministers to redouble their efforts to reach a comprehensive agreement with our largest trading partner at a crucial time in the negotiations.”
Former British prime ministers Tony Blair and John Major joined forces to condemn Johnson’s attempt to override the Brexit agreement, calling it “shameful.” They urged lawmakers in the Labour and Conservative parties to vote down the bill.
“It raises questions that go far beyond the impact on Ireland, the peace process and negotiations for a trade deal — crucial though they are. It questions the very integrity of our nation,” the pair wrote in the Sunday Times.
Since then, the bill cleared an initial vote in the House of Commons.
Sammy Wilson, a senior figure in the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, said his group will table amendments to Johnson’s bill. But he dismissed as “utter bunkum” the former prime ministers’ worry that the Irish peace could unravel.
Wilson said Johnson’s bill will make it easier for Northern Ireland to do business with Great Britain with less paperwork.


Why the Irish border is a perpetual Brexit snag

For decades, Northern Ireland was entangled in a bloody conflict between Unionists, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom, and Nationalists, who wanted to belong to the Republic of Ireland.
The violence tore families apart and pitted neighbors against one another. Bombs ripped through major cities such as London and Belfast. The British military opened fire on unarmed protesters.
Then, in 1998, after 30 years of fighting had killed more than 3,500 people, a truce put an end to the dark period known as the Troubles. Although tensions still existed between the two sides, the treaty, known as the Good Friday Agreement, ushered in a much-welcomed era of relative peace.
But more than two decades later, some crucial details of the arrangement that cooled the conflict have emerged as a sticking point in Britain’s rocky negotiations to depart from the European Union.
Because both Northern Ireland and Ireland belonged to the E.U. in 1998, the truce that ended the conflict allowed the two sides to implement a soft border between them. Since then, people and goods have easily crossed the border. But now, because Britain is trying to leave the E.U. and Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom, a heated debate has emerged over what to do to about the border after Brexit.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has made it clear that Ireland would not accept any deal that led to the implementation of a hard border. In addition to concerns that such a change would create major inconveniences for trade and movement, there are serious fears that reinstating a militarized border could reignite old tensions.
On paper, the conflict ended more than 20 years ago, but there are still open hostilities that have at times bubbled up into violence. Earlier this year, clashes broke out in the city of Londonderry, also called Derry, after a police raid against suspected militant Irish nationalists. In the chaos that followed, Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee was shot dead in what police called “a terrorist act.”
That evening of turmoil in the border city reignited concerns that despite two decades of peace, the conflict was not entirely over — and added further to the stress over what Brexit could do to the border.
To keep the border between the two sides soft, former British prime minister Theresa May tried to sell lawmakers on a plan known as the Irish backstop, which would require Britain to maintain ties to European trade policies. That enraged the pro-Brexit camp, which said it would subject the U.K. to E.U. rules even though it would no longer have any voting power in the E.U.
In his first remarks to Parliament after he succeeded May as prime minister this summer, Boris Johnson said that to agree to such a system would violate Britain’s independence and self-respect.
“If an agreement is to be reached,” he said, “it must be clearly understood that the way to the deal goes by way of the abolition of the backstop.”
Irish leaders lashed out at that suggestion, and Johnson and Varadkar reportedly shared a tense phone call soon after.
But now Johnson has suggested a different plan that would allow the United Kingdom to completely withdraw from the E.U. customs rules by implementing a special customs border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. That arrangement would allow certain goods to be imported in Northern Ireland, for example, as long as they don’t go any further than that. Not everyone is content with this plan, and some are especially concerned by the idea that this would in theory lead to setting up a customs border in the Irish Sea.
But earlier this week, E.U. leaders approved the draft text of the plan and Johnson then called for a Saturday vote, leading the Parliament to convene on a Saturday for the first time in 37 years. Johnson hoped to end the day with his deal approved. But lawmakers instead voted to withhold support until after they pass the technical legislation required for Britain to leave.
The question of what to do about the Irish border wasn’t at the forefront of debate Saturday. But Johnson is still facing resistance among Northern Irish lawmakers from the Democratic Unionist Party, who have said his plan for the border is not in the “long-term interests” of Northern Ireland.
Read more:
The Good Friday Agreement ended decades of conflict. Ireland worries Brexit could unravel it.
Why Boris Johnson is already clashing with Ireland over Brexit
A battle over language is at the heart of Northern Ireland crisis