Republicans believe that Johnson’s challenge to the EU on the Protocol seeks benefits in negotiations on science or financial services
Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald said Tuesday that “in this decade we will see constitutional change in Ireland.” To this end, it trusts in the advancement of the desire for unity in Northern Ireland, but demands that the Government in Dublin begin the preparation of a plan on what the future of a united Ireland would look like, in aspects such as taxation, education, public health or identity issues.
The Republican party, historically associated with the IRA, won the regional elections for the Belfast Assembly, but its aspiration that its leader in the North, Michelle O’Neill, occupy the position of chief minister has been frustrated by the boycott of the second party , the unionist DUP, to elect president of the Assembly. It thus caused the collapse of the autonomic system, based on consensus.
Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the DUP, would be willing to appoint President of the Assembly, when the Government of Boris Johnson presents in Parliament a bill that repeals aspects of the Protocol that, as an annex to the Withdrawal Agreement from the European Union, regulates the border regime for trade in goods between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
The election of the president of the Assembly would allow it to function with limited powers perhaps in six months, and then it would be necessary to wait until the British law was promulgated so that the unionist party would make possible the restoration of autonomy, participating in the appointments of the Minister and Principal Deputy Minister, and the Executive’s advisers.
The DUP has collapsed the structures planned in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and the Government of Boris Johnson claims that it is not breaking international law by planning a domestic repeal of parts of the Treaty signed with the EU, because the Protocol recognizes the supremacy of the constitutional rules of the peace agreement on the European law that allows the permanence of Northern Ireland in the common market.
Other interests
O’Neill told a group of foreign correspondents in London that “Boris Johnson talks about protecting the Good Friday Agreement, but in reality he is putting it in jeopardy.” McDonald affirmed that the majority of the population of the province supports the Protocol and that there is also a majority in the Assembly to endorse its continuity in 2024, as required by the norm.
“The Protocol is the necessary consequence of ‘Brexit’,” said the party president. She recalled that the majority in the province voted to remain and that the regional economy is growing faster than the average among regions in the rest of the UK. The Republicans want to “soften” some of the effects of border controls and reproach Johnson for “creating problems”, when “the future of Northern Ireland is bright”.
Johnson’s objective, in a strategy of confrontation with the EU that would last for many years, is not to save the province from the Protocol, according to the Republicans. The British leader would be increasing his demands to Brussels to obtain better results in his negotiations on the access of financial services to the common market or participation in the Horizon research program.
The Republicans believe that the unionists are aware that the time in which they have been in the majority, a century, is over. They celebrate the remarkable growth of the Alianza party, which does not define itself as unionist or nationalist. The demand for a referendum for the political unity of the island will continue to gain ground, according to them, and the unionists are aware. But they try to delay that moment.
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