The Brexit trade deal could be put on hold in a matter of weeks after anger in Northern Ireland led Sinn Fein to become the biggest party there for the first time.
The nationalist party now has the right to nominate the new Prime Minister, but only if the Democratic Unionist Party agrees to participate in the new Executive and provide the Deputy Prime Minister.
The DUP refuses to re-enter a power-sharing deal unless the Northern Ireland protocol, which keeps the province aligned with the rules of the EU’s customs union and single market, is scrapped or seriously revised. .
Sinn Fein’s victory in the Assembly elections came after divisions on the Unionist side led to a collapse of support for the DUP. The new Assembly contains 27 members from Sinn Fein and 25 from the DUP, with the non-aligned Alianza party third with 17 seats, up from eight in the last election. The moderate UUP and SDLP saw their share of votes and seats shrink.
Westminster politicians have asked the parties to form a new Executive as soon as possible. Northern Ireland’s power-sharing system means there would be no change in the balance of power between Unionists and Nationalists, even though a Sinn Fein Prime Minister, likely Vice-President Michelle O’Neill, would be nominally older.
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said: “The people of Northern Ireland deserve a stable and accountable devolved government and I will continue to urge the leaders of Northern Ireland’s political parties to live up to their responsibilities and form an Executive as strong as possible. soon as possible”.
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Lewis will meet with the leaders of the five biggest parties on Monday and push them to work together. But the DUP’s Jonathan Buckley told the BBC: “Either the Secretary of State wants an Executive or a protocol, he can’t have both.”
Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, has been engaged in talks with Brussels for months on how to reform the protocol to achieve her goal of allowing Northern Ireland to trade freely with the EU, avoiding the need for a hard border with the Republic. of Ireland and the rest of the UK.
He has concluded that negotiations are now likely to fail because his counterpart, Maros Sefcovic, is unable to change his position to accommodate UK demands. i understands
If Brussels does not offer new concessions in the coming weeks, Truss will ask Boris Johnson to authorize unilateral action, which could include suspending much of the deal indefinitely.
The Foreign Secretary hopes that the threat to activate Article 16, the part of the agreement that governs the circumstances in which a party can ignore it, will be enough on its own to persuade the EU to change course.
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said Radio Times: “Frankly, if the Northern Ireland protocol had been implemented in a less dogmatic, rigid and, I have to say, political way, I don’t think we would have these problems. In the way it has been applied by the EU, there is more than a hint of politics to it.
“But whatever happens, we’ve had these discussions for months. We are going to solve the problem and the Prime Minister has been very clear about it.”
Reference-inews.co.uk