Ireland’s Prime Minister Martin accuses the British government of acting unfairly in the dispute over Brexit rules. Great Britain wants to undermine parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol – and thus also snubs the EU.
Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin has accused the British government of being unfair in the dispute over Brexit rules for Northern Ireland. “The current UK government has gone too far,” Martin told the BBC during a visit to Belfast.
Great Britain’s Foreign Minister Liz Truss announced this week that she wanted to undermine parts of the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol with the EU in order to remove hurdles for companies in the British provinces. The EU reacted with outrage.
Tensions feared between Ireland and Northern Ireland
The Northern Ireland Protocol aims to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the EU state of Ireland, which could fuel tensions in the former civil war region again after many years.
However, goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland must now be checked. Supporters of close ties between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom – also known as Unionists – fear this will alienate and decouple them from London.
The British government is working on the principle “As we wish or not at all”. And that’s not the way to negotiate with the EU, criticized the Irishman Martin. Professional, serious talks are the only way to solve the crisis.
Criticism of the Unionists
Martin also criticized the main Unionist party, the DUP, which is currently blocking the formation of the planned unity government with the Catholic-Republican side after the general election in protest at the Northern Ireland Protocol.
In the elections in Northern Ireland a good two weeks ago, the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein Party, which used to be the political arm of the paramilitary Irish Republican Army (IRA), won for the first time in the province’s history.
The DUP does not want to participate in a cabinet in Belfast until the British government has changed or abolished the customs rules for Northern Ireland introduced after Brexit. After the 1998 peace agreement, the so-called Good Friday Agreement, Catholics and Protestants must form the government together.
DUP outraged by Nancy Pelosi
The DUP chairman, Jeffrey Donaldson, sharply criticized the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi had warned the government in London that a unilateral escalation of the dispute over Brexit rules for Northern Ireland would risk a trade pact with the United States. The Brexit supporters around Prime Minister Boris Johnson are striving for one.
If London decides to undermine this deal, the US Congress will not support a bilateral free trade agreement with Britain, Pelosi wrote in a statement.
The so-called Northern Ireland Protocol protects the important stability in the former civil war region, which brought the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, Pelosi continued.
Donaldson said the Northern Ireland Protocol itself undermines the peace process as it threatens the key principles of the Good Friday Agreement.
“If Nancy Pelosi wants the agreement protected, she has to recognize that it is the protocol that damages and undermines the agreement,” Donaldson said.
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