Britain's Raab Says EU Should Stop Treating N. Ireland as 'Separate Country'  

CARBIS BAY, ENGLAND - British foreign minister Dominic Raab criticized the European Union on Sunday for treating Northern Ireland as if it were a separate country rather than part of the United Kingdom, and said that approach was causing damage to the British province.

"Various EU figures here in Carbis Bay, but frankly for months now and years, have characterized Northern Ireland as somehow a separate country and that is wrong. It is a failure to understand the facts," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr program. Raab made his comments amid a dispute between Britain and the European Union over the interpretation of the Northern Ireland protocol, the element of the Brexit divorce deal that relates to trade in the province. Britain's Telegraph newspaper reported that French President Emmanuel Macron had suggested Northern Ireland was not part of the United Kingdom during his meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at Group of Seven summit in Carbis Bay in southwest England.