February 11th, 2018; Mary Lou McDonald takes over and Barnier calls out the British Brexit stance...

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An interesting week but one that will be quickly overshadowed by major events over the next couple of days...

Ireland
Mary Lou McDonald took over as President of Sinn Fein from Gerry Adams. It was the worst kept secret in Irish politics for quite some time. I will write something on what I believe her focus and strategy should be soon so for now all I'll mention that her speech received quite a lot of praise.

​Furthermore, it will be interesting to see her approval ratings in the next few polls. She may even get a good boost this week a new power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland is confirmed.

Brexit
There has been a lot of speculation recently about what the actual Brexit aims of the British government are. Stories involving internal Tory clashes have been omnipresent almost since the day after the Brexit referendum back in June 2016. 

It seems the EU has finally run out of patience with the lack of clarity and this week, at a press conference in London, Michel Barnier called for the British to lay out their aims ahead of the next round of negotiations;

"time has now come to make a choice"

Theresa May has announced that there will be a lot of speeches and meeting over the next few weeks where the British position will become clearer.

Let’s hope this is the case for the sake of the British people, though further clarity could possibly spark a Conservative leadership contest.