UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s new government has hinted at rowing back from a fight with the EU over Brexit, with the new Northern Ireland minister stating that the government is seeking a negotiated agreement with Brussels on the controversial Northern Ireland protocol.
Addressing lawmakers in the House of
Commons on Wednesday (7 September), the new Northern Ireland Secretary
Chris Heaton Harris said that the government’s priority was for the
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to return to a power-sharing executive
in Belfast. Northern Ireland has been without a government since May’s
assembly elections, which saw Sinn Fein, which campaigns for a united
Ireland, topping the polls.
“But in order to do that, we do need to
fix the issues of the Northern Ireland protocol which has damaged the
balance between the communities in Northern Ireland,” he added.
The DUP has said that it will not nominate
an assembly speaker or re-enter the power-sharing executive until its
concerns over the Northern Ireland protocol have been resolved.
Following further questions about whether
the bill allowing UK ministers to override the protocol would be
fast-tracked into law, he replied that the Truss government was
“committed to resolving the problems in the protocol, ideally through a
negotiation, but, if not, through legislation.”
Later, he added that “I am very keen we
try and negotiate a solution with the European Union and sort out the
issues of the protocol.”
Former foreign secretary Liz Truss was
confirmed as the new Prime Minister on Monday after winning a ballot of
the Conservative party’s 160,000 members.
Weeks before Johnson was forced to stand
down following an internal coup by Conservative lawmakers, Truss tabled a
bill that would unilaterally override the Northern Ireland protocol.
The draft bill is currently making its way through parliament. During
the election campaign over the summer, Truss’s aides hinted that one of
her first acts as Prime Minister could be to suspend the protocol,
potentially paving the way to another dispute between the UK and the EU. ...
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