BELFAST: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson steps into an increasingly bitter row on Monday when he visits Northern Ireland to urge the formation of a power-sharing executive, which is currently being blocked by a Brexit dispute.
In a historic development, the role of Northern Ireland’s first minister is set to be taken by the pro-Irish party Sinn Fein, after it triumphed in elections to the Stormont assembly earlier this month.
But the pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), angered at the “Northern Ireland Protocol” agreed as part of Britain’s Brexit deal with the European Union, blocked the election of a speaker at Stormont.
Johnson will meet all parties involved and is expected to tell them that London will “play its part to ensure political stability”, but that Northern Ireland politicians must “get back to work” to deal with “bread-and-butter issues”, according to a statement from his office on Sunday.
The DUP is refusing to help form an executive until the protocol is changed to get rid of trade checks between Northern Ireland and mainland Great Britain, which it believes are threatening the province’s status within the UK.
Johnson’s government also insists the protocol is threatening the delicate balance of peace in Northern Ireland between the pro-Irish nationalist community and those in favour of continued union with the UK.
It has warned it will trigger Article 16 of the Brexit deal to suspend the agreement, or legislate to eliminate its requirements from UK law, unless the EU agrees to change it.
Writing in Monday’s Belfast Telegraph, Johnson said that those who wanted to scrap the protocol were “focusing on the wrong thing”.
“I hope the EU’s position changes,” Johnson wrote. “If it does not, there will be a necessity to act.”
“We will set out a more detailed assessment and next steps to parliament in the coming days, once I return from discussions with the local parties.”
In London, Johnson’s spokesman told journalists that Foreign Secretary Liz Truss would speak in parliament on Tuesday “to set out the rationale for our approach”. — AFP
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