LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was heading to Northern Ireland on Monday to try to end a political deadlock that is preventing the formation of a regional administration.
The trip comes amid threats by Johnson’s government to break the Brexit agreement with the European Union that it signed, but now blames for the crisis.
Johnson said there would be “a necessity to act” if the EU didn’t agree to overhaul post-Brexit trade rules.
Voters in Northern Ireland elected a new Assembly this month, in an election that saw Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein win the most seats. It was the first time a party that seeks union with the Republic of Ireland has won an election in the bastion of Protestant unionist power.
The Democratic Unionist Party came second and is refusing to form a government, or even allow the assembly to sit, until Johnson’s government scraps post-Brexit checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
Under power-sharing rules set up as part of Northern Ireland’s peace process, a government can’t be formed without the cooperation of both nationalist and unionist parties.
Johnson would urge political leaders in Belfast to get back to work and deal with “bread and butter” issues such as the soaring cost of living, his office said Sunday.
But Johnson also accused the EU of refusing to give ground over post-Brexit border checks.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a border with the EU. When Britain left the bloc in 2020, a deal was agreed to keep the Irish land border free of customs posts and other checks, because an open border is a key pillar of the peace process that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland. Instead, there are checks on some goods, such as meat and eggs, entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
The arrangement is opposed by unionists in Northern Ireland, who say the new checks have put a burden on businesses and frayed the bonds between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
The British government agrees that the regulations are destabilizing Northern Ireland’s peace agreement, which relies on support from both Protestant unionist and Catholic nationalist communities.