Keir Starmer has said he believes there can be a “deep” reset in relations with Ireland after arriving in Dublin for his first official visit, with Northern Ireland, Brexit and shared international interests on the agenda.
It is the first official visit by a British prime minister since Boris Johnson visited in 2019 to try to salvage a Brexit deal after years of strained relations.
Five years on, the mood was buoyant as Starmer was greeted by the Taoiseach, Simon Harris.
“It is a pleasure to be here, to have this opportunity that we will take advantage of to renew the friendship between our two countries,” he said.
“I think that reset can be meaningful and profound. Of course, it encompasses the relationship between our two countries. Obviously, it has to encompass the Good Friday agreement and I take our joint role in relation to that very seriously.”
It is the second time Starmer has met Harris in the nine weeks since the general election, a sign of the “current intention” to reset relations for the “great benefit” of the UK and Ireland, Starmer said.
He said pressing international issues, including Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East, were also on the agenda of the meeting.
“In relation to the Middle East, we need a ceasefire so that the remaining hostages can leave, so that desperately needed aid can reach Gaza and so that we can move along the path towards a two-state agreement, which in my view is the only lasting agreement that will bring lasting peace,” the Prime Minister said.
Harris said Ireland and Britain have a “collective desire to see an end to the violence in Gaza.”
Simon Harris and Keir Starmer hold up their respective national football shirts, with their names on the shirts of their opposing teams. Photograph: Charles McQuillan/PA
Before they began their talks, they met nine-year-old Freddie Munnelly from Castleknock, Dublin, who had received a liver transplant in the UK.
The youngster gave the two leaders scarves to wear at the Ireland-England football match at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday night.
The two leaders will take part in a business roundtable in Dublin with representatives from Primark, dairy giant Ornua and Daybreak Meats, among others, to explore how a “reset” in relations can benefit trade.
Earlier on Saturday, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn told the British Irish Association in Oxford that he was committed to implementing the Brexit protocols for Northern Ireland in full to show EU capitals that he was also serious about a reset of the EU deal, including securing a veterinary agreement.
“We will implement the Windsor framework [the Northern Ireland trading arrangements] “With pragmatism and good faith, not only because it is necessary to be able to negotiate a veterinary agreement with the European Union, but also to protect the open border on the island of Ireland.”
However, Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Micheál Martin said there would be no “à la carte” options for the UK in such a reset just because there was a more pro-European government in power in the UK.
