Alter North Ireland Brexit deal or U.K. will have ‘no choice but to act’, warns FM Liz Truss
The Hindu
London
The U.K. will have “no choice but to act” unless the European Union agrees to change post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said on May 12.
Political tensions have risen in the U.K. province after elections last week saw pro-Irish nationalists Sinn Fein become the biggest party for the first time and now bid to lead a power-sharing executive.
But pro-U.K. unionists, who believe the Brexit deal’s Northern Ireland Protocol is driving a wedge between the province and mainland Great Britain, are refusing to join the executive in Belfast until it is changed.
Ms. Truss spoke to European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic on May 12, telling him that the situation was “a matter of internal peace and security for the United Kingdom.
If the EU does not “show the requisite flexibility to help solve those issues, then as a responsible government we would have no choice but to act,” she said.
London has repeatedly said it is prepared to trigger the protocol’s Article 16 suspension clause unless the deal it signed up to is changed - a move the EU has warned could lead to a wider trade war.
Mr. Sefcovic responded by warning that any move by the U.K. ignore post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland would be unacceptable and threaten the 1998 peace deal that ended decades of violence over British rule in the province.
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