UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday hosts his Irish counterpart Micheal Martin, with renewed focus on talks to end a dispute over post-Brexit trade in Northern Ireland.
The two leaders meet with signs that frosty ties are thawing over the issue that has paralysed politics in Northern Ireland and put London at loggerheads with Brussels.
In a sign of renewed commitment to resolving the row, Sunak will become the first UK prime minister to open the British-Irish Council summit since 2007.
Downing Street said Sunak will say he is “determined” to help restore the power-sharing assembly in Belfast “as soon as possible”.
The Northern Ireland Protocol was signed separately from the Brexit trade and cooperation deal that cemented the UK’s departure from the European in January 2021.
But its implementation has proven a particular flashpoint for disagreement between the EU, member state Ireland and the UK.
The protocol kept Northern Ireland in the European single market and customs union, stipulating checks on goods moving from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland.
That was designed to prevent a “hard” border between Ireland and Northern Ireland — a key plank of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland.
But it has enraged the province’s largest pro-UK political party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), leading to their boycott of the Belfast assembly in spite of May elections.
The UK government, which is risking EU reprisals by trying to unilaterally overhaul the protocol through legislation, has threatened to order a new vote.
But on Wednesday it extended the deadline “to create the time and space needed” for talks with the European Commission.
– Optimism –
Both Dublin and Brussels have signalled hopes that they can break the impasse around the protocol in the coming weeks.
Europe’s pointman on talks, Maros Sefcovic, said on Monday an agreement could be found with the right “political will”.
The UK and Irish governments are guarantors of the 1998 peace accords which ended decades of sectarian violence over British rule in Northern Ireland that left 3,500 dead.
The British-Irish Council brings together the UK, Ireland and representatives from the Scottish and Welsh governments, plus the governments on the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey.
In Blackpool, Sunak will have his first face-to-face meetings as prime minister with Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her counterpart in Wales, Mark Drakeford.
Sturgeon is pushing for a second referendum on independence despite opposition from the government in London.
Drakeford recently exploded with rage during a debate at the economic damage caused by Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss, whose proposed unfunded tax cuts caused turmoil in the markets.
Downing Street said Sunak will urge leaders to work together to tackle the current economic crisis, Downing Street said.
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