Great Britain special envoy for Northern Ireland protocol said he told US officials that this was a threat to the Good Friday agreement.
Conor Burns, Northern Ireland minister assigned to the UK case in Washington shrugged. off a threat earlier this month by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to block a free exchange between the US and the UK. trade deal if uk took unilateral action to abolish protocol.
protocol negotiations between the UK and the EU established customs controls between the UK and Northern Ireland. Pelosi said the UK plans enact legislation providing for exceptions to the protocol if these cannot be agreed upon with EU, were “deeply concerned”.
She warned: “If the United Kingdom decides to undermine the Good Friday Accords, Congress cannot and will not support two-way free trade agreement.”
Visiting Washington last Burns said last week that there was a “gap” between such threats and the severity of problems at stake with Northern Ireland protocol.
“It’s too important for us – sorting out situation in Northern Ireland doing the right thing for UK and for in people in Northern Ireland – to be intertwined with any foreign policy or trade ambition,” Burns said.
Burns visited administration officials and members of Congress with thick lump of documents that he says UK businesses must complete out in to transport goods from the UK to Northern Ireland. time and cost of such a bureaucracy stopped manufacturers of food like shortbread and cheese from sale to Northern Ireland.
“These are products that people enjoy in Northern Ireland for decades that have disappeared from the shelves,” he said. “And it feeds the feeling inside the parts of union member community that somehow protocol distinguishes them from the rest of United Kingdom.
“Their identity, their belonging is undermined, and this is a legitimate concern in the unions.”
United Kingdom government asks the EU to agree to exemption from customs checks for goods intended for sale and consumption in Northern Ireland, and therefore will not join the EU. He accused Brussels of was adamant, while EU Vice President Maros Sefcovic said he had put forward solutions that would “substantially improve way in protocol is being implemented.”
Democratic Unionist party (DUP) refuses to log in new power- joint administration with Sinn Féin after the elections on May 5, no significant changes to protocol.
Burns argued that this meant that the protocol was not a proposed law by Britain, it was a threat to the peace agreement.
“I would ask the question: how is the Good Friday agreement protected if institutions born of there is no Good Friday agreement?” Burns said. “What I was trying to gently, delicately explain is that this app is really of in protocol that is currently undermining the agreements, and not others. way near.”
Asked if it was DUP boycott this was the threat power-joint institutes in Stormont, not protocolBurns said: “The whole idea of The Belfast Good Friday Agreement is that it is governed by cross-community consent, and whatever you think of the position that the largest trade union party took, i.e. fact is that they took that position and explained why.”
Burns said it would be tragic if the institutions of Good Friday collapsed because of failure Agree on various customs regimes for shortbread is intended for Northern Ireland and for Republic of Ireland.
He added: “I think historians will look back and judge us incredibly tough if we allow to make it happen.”
