European Union

This vote is mandated by Article 18 of the Windsor Framework, and (unless the EU-imposed law is amended) must take place at Stormont before the end of the year

Dan Boucher: Impending forced majority vote is anything but democracy

Funeral details released for Bishop Noel Trainer

Funeral details released for former Catholic Bishop Noel Treanor

The signing of the Good Friday Agreement is now 26 years ago. Tribal politics, however, is still alive and well in Northern Ireland, writes George Millar

Letter: Focus should be on party policies, not old tribal conflicts

Letters to editor

Letter: Only Jim Allister has had the grasp of detail to expose the NI Protocol

DUP leader Gavin Robinson said unionists could not be complacent about the maintenance of the Union

Support for Irish unity not advanced one step in 25 years, says DUP leader

The new DUP leader Gavin Robinson. In February the party claimed that the internal UK trade border was gone, only after the election was called did it grudgingly admit that that was not so

Jim Allister: Those who sought to mislead you over the border now want your vote

Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said the treaty relating to Gibraltar is different from the NI Protocol. He said: “This is a treaty which if you don’t like it, it has termination clauses – you can leave it”.

Cameron: Gibraltar deal different from Protocol because 'you can leave it'

The Irish government - which has maintained that the border with Northern Ireland must remain open - has conducted immigration checks on people travelling across the border on busses. Some migrants have been returned to Belfast by train, with others deported by ferry to Holyhead.

Ireland's 'rank hypocrisy' on border checks

Conservative MP and former home secretary Suella Braverman says the Windsor Framework is undermining Northern Ireland's place within the UK.

Braverman: Windsor Framework not working

Taoiseach Simon Harris with First Minister Michelle O'Neill and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, during a press conference outside Stormont Castle after a meeting as the Taoiseach made his first official visit to Northern Ireland

Idea Ireland could join Rwanda scheme ‘more satire than news’, says taoiseach

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

Risha Sunak: Of course we won’t accept migrant returns

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in any sort of returns deal with Ireland if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had crossed the English Channel from France

Sunak ‘not interested’ in asylum seeker returns deal with Ireland

DUP leader Gavin Robinson has said the party's deal will remove the border in the Irish Sea for UK goods - and defended Sir Jeffrey Donaldson's claim that it was removed, saying it's what it will do, not what had happened at that point. Photo: BBC News NI

Robinson: UK internal border gone by autumn

Letters to editor

Letter: Removal of sea border is still achievable

A garden centre owner has told the BBC that empty Snowdrop bulb packets are sent to Holland, where they are filled with bulbs, and delivered to Northern Ireland via Dublin.

Garden centre boss says DUP deal hasn't helped him import plants

Inspection posts at Northern Ireland's ports continue to constructed to ensure certain goods meet European Union standards.

'Colossal' £192m for sea border posts
The cost of constructing border inspection posts required as a result of the NI Protocol / Windsor Framework could reach £192.3 million, the government has revealed.
David Thompson

The new Sinn Fein economy minister Conor Murphy MLA, seen with Michelle O'Neill, says the new trading arrangements under the Windsor Framework will accelerate the "all island economy". Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Economy minister: DUP deal will have 'little effect'

The Northern Ireland Protocol came into force two years ago, resulting in extra checks at ports. However, fundamentally, the protocol/Windsor Framework is still intact, writes Sammy Wilson, Lord Dodds and Lord Morrow

Wilson, Dodds, Morrow: Our seven tests have not been met, we must fight on

DUP deputy leader Gavin Robinson says has defended the principle of a red lane to avoid a regulatory border on the island of Ireland. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye

Gavin Robinson says unionists 'encouraged' by deal to revive Stormont

Letters to editor

Letter: So much to be gained from North Channel tunnel

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris during a joint press conference at Hillsborough Castle with Sir Jeffrey Donaldson on Wednesday evening. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Chris Heaton-Harris: My understanding of unionist politics is at GCSE level

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson leaving his party's HQ at Dundela in east Belfast yesterday, where he briefed senior members on the deal between the DUP and government. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

What's in the DUP's sea border deal?

Geoffrey Wilson, who took taken legal action against the Alliance party

Expelled Alliance member Geoffrey Wilson loses legal battle against the party

Cathal Geoghegan, president, NI Chamber

View: Affirming Northern Ireland’s place in a competitive world

Stormont has been without a fully functioning Executive for almost two years. The government has called for the DUP to agree to a return to Stormont

Letter: DUP must apply test before agreeing to any deal

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson will consult with unionist and loyalist groups in the coming week - and a meeting with the Orange Order leadership is expected as part of those engagements. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Orange Order: EU must 're-interpret' parts of Framework

The European Parliament has voted to ban dental amalgam – the material used most commonly for NHS permanent fillings in the UK – by January 2025

European ban on silver fillings ‘could be straw that breaks NHS dentistry back’
A new European ruling on silver dental fillings will have significant impacts on NHS dentistry, leading professionals have warned.
PA Reporter

Sir Robert Buckland, speaking to BBC News NI's The View programme, said direct rule would mean "triggering certain aspects of the Good Friday Agreement" and "involvement of the Irish government, ultimately" - and that constitutional issues around the NI Protocol were matters for the EU.

NI Affairs chair Sir Robert Buckland under fire over sovereignty remarks

Bryson: 'Forgive them for they know not what they do' no longer applies

Peter Robinson said Northern Ireland could have the best of both worlds with seamless access to both the UK and EU market. But if our rules for trading goods are set in Brussels, it will always be costlier and more expensive for mainland companies to send products to this province

Owen Polley: No unionist worth the name would accept being semi detached from GB

TUV Leader Jim Allister speaks during a anti-Northern Ireland Protocol rally in Bangor, County Down. Picture date: Saturday April 30, 2022.

New UK potato rules 'treat NI as a third country’ - Allister

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that having a referendum on an important matter that you may not win 'is fraught with risk'

Varadkar: Border poll not a good idea at the moment because it would be defeated

TUV leader Jim Allister has responded to Steve Baker's comments that a “50% plus one” majority would not be advisable for a vote on Irish unification

Jim Allister comments on 'salami slicing of the Union' without consent

When Leo Varadkar, seen above this year at Windsor Park in Belfast, boasts about a path to Irish unity he is talking about the protocol Foolishly, there are those urging unionism to assist this insidious process by restarting Stormont with Sinn Fein at the wheel

Jim Allister: Ignore Windsor deal spin – it has achieved what the IRA didn't

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar

'Dignified silence may be better': Ian Paisley hits back at Leo Varadkar

Letters to editor

Brexit is the issue that will not go away – it needs to be reversed

Belfast Docks on Sunday as a the new red/green lanes for moving goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland came into operation

As NI gets first taste of red and green lanes, 'fundamental problems' remain

Rishi Sunak is said to be focused on maximising the current deal. (Photo by Hannah McKay - WPA Pool / Getty Images)

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rules out new Brexit trade talks

Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris and European Commission vice-president Maros Šefčovič pictured during a visit to Youth Action in Belfast. They are pictured meeting Kasey English with her son Kai English Mason. Photo: Kelvin Boyes/Press Eye.

Peace Plus money 'predominantly British largese’: Jim Allister

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, Irish premier Leo Varadkar and European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic will be joined on Monday for the announcement in Belfast

£1 billion peace funding announcement to be made in Belfast

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and MLA Emma Little-Pengelly speaking to the media following a meeting with the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, Jayne Brady, at Stormont Castle in Belfast. Picture date: Thursday August 17, 2023. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

DUP having “meaningful engagement” with the UK government - breakthrough elusive

The protocol confirms Northern Ireland as EU territory governed by its trading laws , writes Jim Allister

Jim Allister: The protocol noose is tightening

The port of Larne, which will become a frontier checking point for goods. Although the UK government announced that a green lane ‘removes any sense of a border in the Irish Sea’, such a claim is generally treated with some scepticism. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press

Analysis: How green is the Green Lane for goods under the Windsor Framework?

We will all suffer in Northern Ireland after October 1 as a result of the actions of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. Picture Leon Neal/PA Wire

Sammy Wilson: Business groups should stop being so cowardly about the framework

TUV leader Jim Allister during the TUV Aprill 2022 Manifesto at the Dunadry Hotel. Photo: Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Under the Northern Ireland Protocol we will never be a full part of the UK: TUV

Baroness Kate Hoey has warned against any political "fudge" on the union when it comes to restoring Stormont. Photo: PA

Bryson and Hoey warn of 'fudge' in DUP returning to Stormont

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during a visit to Coca-Cola HBC in Lisburn on February 28, when he oversold the Windsor Framework as being the end of the border in the Irish Sea

Sunak has been exposed in his false claims over Irish Sea border says Allister

Morning View

Editorial: Insulting use of name Malvinas reflects underlying Falklands tensions

The Irish Tricolour on a bonfire. Should the Republic apologise to the families of those who have been murdered due to their past policies and give up their insistence on the hard border in the Irish Sea, only then would any self-respecting unionist treat their flag with anything other than contempt

Letter: The Irish Republic is not, and never has been, a friendly neighbour

The DUP has presented the government and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with an 18-page document containing its proposals for solving the problems with the Windsor Framework

Owen Polley: Comforting words won’t solve trade and sovereignty issues

Boris Johnson betrayed NI, Rishi Sunak falsely spoke of ‘no sense of an Irish Sea border’

Owen Polley: Seven years after Brexit, NI is the region Britain left behind

Flags at the annual Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey, London, earlier this year. Unionism should not be afraid to highlight the benefits of the Union and Commonwealth, writes John Coulter

John Coulter: Commonwealth could be key to undermining Irish unity calls

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is under pressure to take the DUP back into Stormont

Letter: Unionists should not throw in the towel over Northern Ireland Protocol

Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street before resigning as prime minister last year. It has, been extraordinary to see a parliamentary committee try to drive an ex PM out of parliament. Until now such ex leaders, however much despised by their political enemies, were granted a certain respect in retirement. Pic: Aaron Chown/PA Wire

Ben Lowry: I am no Boris fan but he is right to defend elected political power

Latest news from the Department of Health has confirmed drastic cuts that will negatively impact over 60 community and voluntary organisations across the province

Community organisations pushed to 'brink' after funding cuts