challenges ni

After more than four years of debate, negotiation and political turmoil, the UK and the EU have agreed a post-Brexit trade deal. Two Challenges NI contributors have been following the talks closely and have now examined the final agreement. Here, they answer five key questions about Brexit, the Trade Deal and the future of the entire continent. Ryan Hoey is a 21 year old Politics student at Queen’s University Belfast. He campaigned for Leave in the EU Referendum and stood as

On Monday 16th March, one week before the UK went into lockdown, I was out with my friends at Kremlin in Belfast. Despite still being open, the club was clearly conscious of the growing public health crisis and had put in place measures to protect their customers and staff. As customers entered the club, they were required to sanitise their hands. Members of staff, working in the cloakroom and at the bar, were wearing masks and gloves to protect themselves and others. Due to

Over the last few weeks, the government has announced spending commitments worth tens of billions of pounds in order to counteract the negative ramifications of the Coronavirus lockdown. In response, outgoing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that this proves he was right to advocate higher levels of public spending in the 2019 general election. This follows a general line of argument on social media that neo-liberal ideology has been undermined by the crisis. This analysis is

I have a great deal of sympathy with Loyalists who are frustrated with the Peace Process in Northern Ireland. Over the last twenty years they have seen their police service disbanded and denounced as institutionally sectarian, their culture ridiculed by wider society, those who terrorised their community released from prison and the political party closely aligned with these terrorists sat in government with nice, cushy jobs. This understanding of their perspective did not te

Perhaps the most ill-informed debate surrounding Brexit is the issue of the Northern Irish border. I was recently in Coleraine for a Forum hosted by the Washington-Ireland Programme, a fantastic initiative started at the beginning of the Peace Process, which brings together students from across the island of Ireland. During one of the discussions, a young man from Dublin raised his fear that post-Brexit he will have to present his passport at the border. This concern is not u