Just elected and already unable to work: The dispute over the Brexit special status for Northern Ireland is paralyzing the regional parliament. The pro-British DUP party blocked the election of the speaker of parliament in protest at trade regulations.
The newly elected parliament in Northern Ireland is unable to work. The main Protestant party in the British part of the country, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), refused to elect a Speaker of Parliament. She was protesting against the Brexit rules for Northern Ireland agreed with the EU. The DUP has decided neither to vote for a speaker nor to nominate its own candidate, party leader Jeffrey Donaldson said at the first session of the newly elected National Assembly.
“We need to send a clear message to the European Union and our government that we are serious about tackling the protocol because of the damage it is doing,” Donaldson said.
Protest against Brexit regulations
The DUP is demanding that the UK government scrap the deal it struck with the EU as part of the Brexit deal. The regulation is intended to avoid controls at the border to the EU member Republic of Ireland and thus prevent the dispute between supporters and opponents of a merger of the British province of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland from flaring up again.
Instead, however, a customs border has emerged between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The British government and supporters of the Union like the DUP therefore fear alienation from London.
Boycott indefinitely
The boycott will be maintained until the trade regulations are lifted, the DUP said. Party leader Donaldson said the party’s criticism of the new trade rules – also known as the Northern Ireland Protocol – was not just a political squabble. “The protocol is a direct challenge to the principles that have underpinned every agreement in Northern Ireland for the past 25 years,” he said. “It undermines the foundations on which decentralization was built.”
The vice president of the Catholic-Republican party Sinn-Fein, Michelle O’Neill, then accused the DUP of taking the people of Northern Ireland hostage with their blocking attitude for their failed Brexit policy. Sinn Fein had won the regional election. Intersectarian Alliance Party leader Naomi Long called the DUP’s stance “incredibly frustrating”.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin also called on the DUP to end its blocking stance. “Yes, there are issues that unionists have pointed out to us in terms of protocol,” Martin said. “But these problems should not prevent us from constituting the regional assembly and forming a government.”
Regional Parliament currently unable to work
The Protestant DUP came second in last week’s election to the Northern Ireland regional parliament. The winner of the election was the Catholic Sinn Fein party, which is striving for a union with Ireland. According to an agreement, Sinn Fein is now allowed to fill the post of first minister, while the DUP takes over the post of deputy minister. A government can only be formed when both offices are filled.
The DUP is conditional on repealing the Northern Ireland Protocol and removing border controls on goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
In the Brexit referendum in 2016, the DUP campaigned for the United Kingdom to leave the EU and later, together with Brexit hardliners from the Tory Party, blocked what was described as a “backstop” compromise solution by British Prime Minister Theresa May at the time. The Northern Ireland Protocol, which the DUP rejects, is therefore not insignificantly due to their own actions.
Rees-Mogg: EU wants to punish London for Brexit
In the dispute over the Brexit rules for Northern Ireland, a British member of the government accused the EU of wanting to punish Great Britain for leaving the EU. “I think she wants to make the UK feel bad for leaving the EU,” Secretary of State for Brexit Opportunities Jacob Rees-Mogg told the BBC. “It underpins her whole policy and she doesn’t really care about the consequences,” he said of the EU.
Great Britain should not be considerate, according to Rees-Mogg. “We have to go our own way. We are an independent country and what the EU wants and thinks is secondary.” He accused the EU of acting in bad faith. The contract provides for a revision, he claimed. However, this has not yet happened.
The British government in London is pushing for a renegotiation of the agreement signed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself. In the meantime, she has issued an ultimatum to the EU to agree to changes to the treaty. Otherwise you want to end the regulation unilaterally. In that case, a trade war could loom.
EU insists on Northern Ireland Protocol
EU officials had previously announced that unilateral action by the government in London would affect trade privileges. Brussels insists that the Northern Ireland Protocol is a legally binding international treaty. The EU has proposed changes, but Britain has rejected them as insufficient and counterproductive.
EU Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, in charge of negotiations with the UK government, said there needed to be honesty about the fact that the EU could not solve all the problems that Brexit had caused.
The Chair of the Internal Market Committee of the EU Parliament, Anna Cavazzini, described it as “absurd and irresponsible” that London is now starting a dispute as a diversionary maneuver with the EU. “It shows: Prime Minister Boris Johnson has his back to the wall on domestic policy.”
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