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The effects of not having a budget in place in NI are real and are being felt by publicly funded bodies - like QUB and UU - throughout NI. The Executive parties have to get back to keeping the lights on, or everyone will end up a lot poorer: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/norther...

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There is a lot that the summary judgment occludes (like how the NICA considers s 52 of the Climate Change Act should work?), but McAlinden J is the same judge who pulled at all the procedural threads in the Parades Commission decision making. The NICA is cautioning against overstating errors in JR.

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The High Court's A5 ruling, with its broad application of JR standards, followed judicial complaints over the assessment of emissions standards by the Dept of Infrastructure. The NICA isn't convinced and insists that judicial review is a supervisory jurisdiction: www.judiciaryni.uk/files/judici...

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Great to see @sylviademars.me present her case studies on frontier workers on the island of Ireland after Brexit. Thousands of people are affected by the clashing post-Brexit systems which are still not fully mapped and this work will have huge consequences in every day life:

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I'm old fashioned ... I think that preeminently rights questions aren't best up for grabs in day-to-day politics. Also, Garvaghy Road is not the confutation of the peace process - it's one edge case: www.irishnews.com/opinion/robe...

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Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Okay, I get that Drumcree is kicking off, but deploying an aircraft carrier to Belfast was low on my list of possible policy solutions...

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New open-access paper from @clarerice.bsky.social & Megan Campbell drawing together some of the discussions with the general public in NI that we had in the course of the "Performing Identities" project. Really important reflections on a decade of Brexit reality: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

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Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Begging, begging, a journalist to ask the natural follow up, whatdaya mean, question...

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Reposted by Colin Murray

Sean Jones KC @seanjones.org · 06/10/2026

What a rascal! Leaning on his personal assistant to fabricate evidence to help him win libel damages. Perjuring himself. Breaking a promise to pay the money to charity. Having his counsel accuse the assistant of fraud over her personal expenses at the perjury trial. Lovely guy. Fit to legislate.

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Wendy Lyon @wendylyon.eurosky.social · 06/10/2026

The TL;DR is that the circumstances have to relate specifically to the individual and not to general country conditions. Another way that applicants from Gaza are being screwed.

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Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I thought it couldn't get worse. We must have passed peak "atavistic Nordies, at it again" commentary? Fintan said to his fellow Irish Times commentators, hold my beer: www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

irishtimes.com

Fintan O'Toole: Drumcree is theatre of the absurd, straight from Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks

Both sides are guilty of obscene exaggeration and competitive victimhood

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And there was me worrying you'd missed that it had been your turn to star on my weekend reading list...

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These are magically unanswerable questions - I suspect Benn would have been as reluctant to refashion the Parades Commission (thinking, what could go wrong when so many commissioner terms elapse in December?) but he might well have clearer on his s 11 Public Processions Act powers from the outset.

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Noel Doran: Why does London keep sending us such inexperienced secretaries of state?

Can't overstate how much this critique is misplaced. Bryant is, in Westminster terms, vastly experienced, with an executive career stretching back to ministerial appointments under Gordon Brown. The problem is that doesn't translate into knowing or caring about NI: www.irishnews.com/opinion/noel...

irishnews.com

There is little in Chris Bryant’s CV which suggests he was ever qualified to take charge of a major political crisis

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Drumcree is being portrayed, where there is any rights analysis at all, as a straight clash between Art 8 and Art 11. This is problematic, as it doesn't recognise the specific protest rights of the Garvaghy Road residents (as the CAJ and FIDH highlight here): www.fidh.org/en/region/eu...

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Going through the Electoral Commission's lesson plans for secondary schools on democracy and I have views. Many UK public bodies would really like to ignore devolution in NI 1921-72, even without that Assembly elections were in '98 and (bonus) this erases pre-Apartheid black voting in South Africa.

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Reposted by Colin Murray

'While UK universities face a financial crisis, providers of accommodation are grappling with falling international student numbers, a cost of living squeeze and higher borrowing and build costs, exacerbated by the Iran war, affecting upgrades at older properties.'

theguardian.com

‘I didn’t know what to do’: collapse of providers of high-end digs leaves students in shock

Cost of living crisis and drop in international students hits market for purpose-built accommodation

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Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Has anyone ever tried talking? I honestly give up with this level of intervention.

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Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

When will the bad takes from people who intermittently discover NI's governance arrangements stop?? The Public Processions Act was enacted months before the GFA, to address this issue as a preliminary. The GFA wasn't meant to tackle this. Also NI Bill of Rights was never enacted as the GFA intended:

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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

A man builds an IED. He sets it off in a busy public street. Shrapnel flies about hitting cars, homes and a child's bedroom. It's a miracle nobody is injured. And Reform MP Sarah Pochin calls his imprisonment "disproportionate" and "two tier justice."

It does raise this point of two-tiered
justice..

Reform's Sarah Pochin believes the
sentence handed to the 64-year-old who
blew up a ULEZ camera was
disproportionate'.

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Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Always worth listening to Stormont Sources for an informed account of NI politics, but it's very NI that you are more likely to get a discourse on "love your neighbour" than on Art 11 ECHR. Go here for a weekend read on the relevant law around parades: ukconstitutionallaw.org/2026/09/30/r...

ukconstitutionallaw.org

Richard Martin: Scenes from the Garvaghy Road, 2026: Protest, Police and Public Law in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland’s so-called marching season is usually petering out by now. This year looks to be different. On Sunday 27 September, after a 28-year wait and a flurry of last-minute legal challeng…

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Reposted by Colin Murray

Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Brave of them to start events so early:

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Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Old wound? The Telegraph is really asking us to believe that NI's status in the UK was settled for all time rather than being for the people of Ireland to determine... www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

telegraph.co.uk

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Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I am living to see the people of NI prove this assessment wrong. The Drumcree election is coming, but people who are actively whipping up tensions might well find themselves playing to a diminishing base. V few people believed this march would ever be back on the agenda: www.ft.com/content/9297...

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James Murray @james-bg.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Latest blog is on Burnham's promise of 'pragmatism' in the North Sea, why it's a weaselly word that is providing cover for deeply unpragmatic actions, and why the climate movement needs to talk more about the climate crisis. www.businessgreen.com/blog-post/45...

businessgreen.com

What does true pragmatism look like in an age of climate crisis?

Andy Burnham has promised a 'pragmatic' approach to North Sea drilling, but who gets to decide what that word even means?

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The bizarre thing is, McDowell's analysis is that this was a monumental blunder by a Parades Commission stung by criticism of failures and feeling backed into a corner on a really sensitive issue. It's just that that account doesn't support the "here be dragons" story he wants to tell ...

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Drumcree becomes all the excuse Michael McDowell needs to unleash his favourite and most oft-repeated column theme: Northerners are scary. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

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Much as I would love to see a resolution to the last few days of crisis, there must be a lot of details of this Drumcree proposal which are being left out, even if the leaked information is accurate, because as it stands this is a recipe for hundreds of prosecutions: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Wendy Lyon @wendylyon.eurosky.social · 01/10/2026

None of the reporting on this story takes any notice of the fact that Fleadh was in Belfast in August. This is a small drop (3%) in North American tourists .. could it be accounted for by the fact that many were in Belfast for the major cultural event instead? No, tax cuts are always the answer.

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Reposted by Colin Murray

Once again it needs to be stressed that this is something happening across the board in Irish immigration- changes in practice leading to refusals that would not have occurred in previous years. We are in a very dark time for the rights of people migrating to Ireland and their families.

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Appointment of Rachel Langdale KC to lead Truth Recovery Public Inquiry welcomed

There was a huge risk that the NI public inquiry into Laundries and Institutional Abuse was not going to get off the ground amid the turmoil of recent months - this is important news, and Langdale has vital experience as Counsel to other inquiries: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/norther...

belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Probe will cover mother and baby institutions, Magdalene laundries and workhouses

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Image manipulation like this only serves to heighten tensions by suggesting more support for forcing this march down Garvaghy Road than actually exists. May such efforts always be this inept...

Altered image of huge crowds at Orange Order protest of around 200 people.

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It's never going to happen Alan, and I'm sad for them and their inability to see anywhere but 'merca as a point of reference.

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The NICA judgment was on the validity of the injunction by Smyth J, the NIHC judgment on the case remitted to it by the NICA (the "middle of the night" decision) is here: www.judiciaryni.uk/judicial-dec...

judiciaryni.uk

[2026] NIKB 55

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The rewriting of NI's post-1998 governance arrangements has happened repeatedly from St Andrews to NDNA (often at the behest of the parties and never, since 1998, with direct popular input). St Andrews itself demonstrates how far such changes can go if the UK and Irish Govts accept them.

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Frightening, isn't it, how little irrationality as a head of review actually means? The nature of the Parades Commission decision making and the sparse reasoning in the determination makes it very difficult to get to the bottom of this, even when the manifest problem is glaring.

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Splashy ministerial promises that a public inquiry will provide answers for the Finucane family, meet the persistent foot dragging and half-hearted engagement from public bodies that habitually accompany efforts to shine a light on wrongdoing in the UK authorities' involvement in the NI conflict:

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