Sinn Fein will tell Conservatives to “stop pandering to the DUP” over the Northern Ireland Protocol by threatening to rip up the Brexit treaty at a historic meeting with Tory MPs in Parliament on Tuesday night.
Michelle O’Neill, the vice-president of the nationalist party, will say that most people in Northern Ireland support the Protocol, which created the Irish Sea border and introduced customs checks on British goods.
“The British government needs to stop pandering to the DUP,” Ms O’Neill, who led Sinn Fein to a historic first majority in May 5 elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, told the BBC.
She added, “The DUP’s voice does not reflect the wider view at home. And the reality is that the Protocol is working.”
“It is only Boris Johnson and the DUP, in their approach, that are the outlier here,” she said before pointing to the pro-Protocol majority in the Stormont after the elections.
Ms O’Neill said the economy was outperforming the rest of the UK as a result of the Protocol, which gives Northern Ireland unique access to both the UK and EU markets.
“There’s a lot of noise here in Britain in terms of the fact that the Protocol isn’t working, but that’s not the reality,” she said, “Business surveys all show that our economic output is actually far more superior.”
“Threatening to bring forward legislation, to undermine international agreements, and take unilateral action, doesn’t serve our purposes well,” the nationalist leader said.
The Government says its preference is to negotiate big cuts in protocol checks with Brussels but warns it will take action to protect Northern Ireland’s place in the UK market if necessary.
It argues the treaty is having a chilling effect on British trade to Northern Ireland and that it is undermining the Good Friday Agreement because it does not have the consent of unionists.
The DUP claims the Protocol, which prevents a hard border on the island of Ireland, is pushing up the cost of living and driving a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
It has refused to enter power-sharing in Stormont, and has blocked the appointment of a new Speaker to the Assembly, until the Protocol is removed or replaced in UK-EU negotiations.
Without a functioning Assembly, Stormont is unable to use its devolved powers to tackle the cost of living and huge waiting times for the NHS.
Ireland has ‘voted for change’
Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein’s president, and Ms O’Neill have invited all Tory MPs to the Tuesday evening event in Parliament, in an unprecedented diplomatic effort from a party that refuses to take up its seats in Westminster.
Sinn Fein is certain to face questions over its plans for a referendum on Irish reunification Ms O’Neill suggested there could be a border poll, which must be called by London, in the next decade after people on the island of Ireland had “voted for change”.
Ms O’Neill said that Brexit had been “foisted” upon Northern Ireland, which voted Remain in the 2016 referendum, and warned that it was “not compatible” with the Good Friday Agreement.
The US, a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, has warned Congress will not pass a UK-UK free trade deal if Britain tears up the Protocol, which was agreed in 2019 and came into effect at 11pm on December 31 2020.
Brussels has warned that any unilateral action would break international law and could trigger a trade war or the cancellation of the UK-EU free trade agreement.
In October last year the EU offered to cut some checks in exchange for market surveillance to ensure goods were not crossing the invisible border into EU member Ireland but progress since has been slow.
On Monday, the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte told the Irish prime minister he would support him “shoulder to shoulder ” over the Protocol. Mr Rutte said the EU had shown ‘maximum flexibility ‘ in talks with the UK during a visit to Dublin.
