Northern Ireland’s political leaders have pressed Boris Johnson to end a stalemate over post-Brexit trading arrangements for the region that have scuppered the prospect of forming a new executive.
Leaders of Sinn Féin, the nationalist party which is now the biggest party in Northern Ireland for the first time, and the pro-UK Democratic Unionist party, as well as Ireland’s prime minister, held separate calls with the UK prime minister on Tuesday before the government set out its legislative agenda in the Queen’s Speech.
Sinn Féin, long associated with the paramilitary IRA and committed to Irish reunification, is in line to take the first minister’s post in the region’s power-sharing executive after it won the most seats in the Stormont assembly in elections last week.
But the DUP, runner-up in the vote, has refused to join an executive until a customs border in the Irish Sea imposed after London’s exit from the EU is scrapped.
Michelle O’Neill, the region’s first minister-in-waiting, said in a tweet that she had told Johnson that “the DUP’s refusal to form an executive is punishing the public, leaving workers and families high and dry”.
She added: “The public here can’t be a pawn in the British government’s game of chicken with the EU.”
The Queen’s Speech, in which the government sets out its legislative priorities, did not mention plans to introduce laws that would allow the UK to unilaterally scrap parts of the so-called Northern Ireland protocol, which governs Northern Ireland’s trading rules with Great Britain and the EU.
But Johnson told his Irish counterpart, Taoiseach Micheál Martin, that the protocol was “not sustainable in its current form”. Martin urged his counterpart to “avoid any unilateral action”.
“The prime minister made clear that the situation in respect of the Northern Ireland protocol was now very serious,” Downing Street said in a statement.
London believes the protocol is undermining the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which ended the Troubles — three decades of conflict between republicans fighting to drive the British out of Northern Ireland and loyalists battling to stay in the UK. Under the peace deal, traditional nationalist and unionist communities must both be represented in a power-sharing executive.
Delivering the Queen’s Speech on Tuesday, Prince Charles said the government would “prioritise support for the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement and its institutions” — a form of words seen as the government’s shorthand for potentially taking action against the protocol.
Johnson, Downing Street said, told Martin that the UK’s “repeated efforts” had not succeeded in securing necessary moves from Brussels and that “the UK government would take action to protect peace and political stability in Northern Ireland if solutions could not be found”.
The DUP says that customs checks on goods travelling between Britain and the region undermine Northern Ireland’s place as part of the UK. Its leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, told Johnson: “We cannot nominate to an executive until decisive action is taken on the protocol. We will listen carefully to what is said today in parliament.”
Northern Ireland’s political leaders met Brandon Lewis, secretary of state for the region, in Belfast on Monday who urged the parties to form an executive swiftly.
Brussels is losing patience with London and is in no hurry to make fresh concessions, diplomats say, and any unilateral action could trigger a trade war with Brussels.
Although unionist parties, which oppose the protocol, won more votes than nationalist parties in last Thursday’s elections, the majority believes the current arrangements can be made to work.
The assembly is expected to meet on Friday to elect a new Speaker, but there is no prospect of a new executive being formed until the protocol dispute is settled.
That means caretaker ministers will remain in their posts, but with limited powers, and Northern Ireland will face months of political limbo that could lead to fresh elections.
The government also announced planned legislation for a de facto amnesty on Troubles-era atrocities — an initiative which has united politicians and civil society on both sides of the Irish border in opposition — as well as long-promised cultural legislation to give the Irish and Ulster Scots languages official status in Northern Ireland.
