(Bloomberg) — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he is “confident” that the post-Brexit dispute over Northern Ireland can be resolved, a latest positive note as UK-EU relations continue to thaw.
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Sunak, speaking to broadcasters after attending a British-Irish council meeting in Blackpool on Thursday, said that if talks between the two sides have a “spirit of goodwill and pragmatism” then “we can find a way through.”
“I’m pleased with the progress that we’re making in the early days in this job,” Sunak said, shortly after meeting his Irish counterpart, Micheal Martin, who described their discussion as “very positive.” “My focus is to try and find a resolution here,” Sunak said.
UK-EU relations have been strained for months over post-Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland. But negotiations restarted in October and there are clear signs of progress on a deal, with Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney saying this week that an agreement is “doable” by the end of the year.
That sentiment was echoed Thursday by Martin, who said there’s now a “very good window of opportunity” to resolve the issues.
The stakes are high for Sunak’s government, not least because tensions with the EU have at times threatened to boil over into an all-out trade war at a critical time. But finding a resolution is also key to ending Northern Ireland’s own political impasse, which creates a major headache for London.
The original Brexit deal is at the heart of the problem. In it, the UK and EU agreed that in order to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland should remain in the bloc’s single market for goods. That solution is broadly welcomed by the region’s nationalists but has angered many unionists because it treats post-Brexit Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK.
The Talks
The UK also argues that implementing the Brexit deal, which effectively created a customs border in the Irish Sea, has disrupted trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
In the talks, the UK is pushing for a major reduction in the customs burden on goods moving across the Irish Sea, plus it wants to remove the role of the European Court of Justice as the final arbiter of disputes in Northern Ireland. Though the mood music has been improving, the two sides are still yet to find agreement on these points.
Opposition to the post-Brexit settlement has caused a breakdown in Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government since February, with the Democratic Unionist Party blocking its formation until the so-called Northern Ireland protocol is changed.
This week, the UK said it will legislate to give more time for Northern Irish political parties to form a power-sharing government before elections have to be held — a clear signal that London is hoping it can strike a deal with the EU that will be acceptable to the DUP and persuade it to drop its demands.
The delay “aims to create the time and space for talks” between the UK government and the European Commission to develop, and for political parties to try to end their impasse “as soon as possible,” the UK’s Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris told Parliament.
–With assistance from Ellen Milligan and Morwenna Coniam.
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