Sunak promises unionists to end freight controls between Great Britain and Northern Ireland international

Northern Ireland, and especially its fit into the United Kingdom, forces British politicians to constantly make the Florentine compromises, compromises and gestures that they so hate when the EU does. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) this week finally lifted a more than two-year blockade on the normal functioning of self-government institutions – the Assembly and the Executive – after tough negotiations with Rishi Sunak’s government.

In front of the gallery – especially in front of the Northern Irish unionist population, which is willing to see in each change a new betrayal of Great Britain – the DUP has managed to reopen the content of the Windsor Framework Agreement, which Sunak and the President agreed to in the European Union. The head of the commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had visited that British city about a year earlier to obtain new concessions. The new agreement between the main unionist party and Downing Street scraps “green lines” designed by London and Brussels, which eliminated control barriers to business traffic between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and vice versa. This was a significant concession from the EU to reduce tensions over the issue, but it had no significant impact on the DUP. Symbolically, he still considered Northern Ireland to be treated separately from the rest of the United Kingdom.

He says, “The Green Line will be replaced by a UK internal market system that will regulate the movement of all goods and merchandise within the country, supported by new protections for historic trade flows and a reduction in burdens and formalities ” arrived between the DUP and Westminster, baptized with the important name of security of the union (To protect the union).

Both London and Dublin, co-responsible for maintaining the peace and institutional normality achieved in Northern Ireland with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, have celebrated that the DUP has finally lifted its blockade. Both governments are confident that the EU will not stand in the way of a deal that aims to appease unionists and save face for the party leadership, and whose provisions actually represent many of the changes agreed between Sunak and Vaughn a year ago. Don’t do it. Der Leyen.

Union of Ireland, close

The resumption of normal functioning of Northern Irish autonomous institutions marks a historic event. In May 2022, Sinn Féin won a historic victory in Northern Ireland regional elections for the first time in the face of divided unionism. As established by the Good Friday Agreement, the result implied that the Republican candidate, Michelle O’Neill, was to occupy the chair of Chief Minister of the Northern Irish government, which was difficult to swallow for the most radical unionists who had ever seen it. Have not stopped seeing Sinn Féin as the heir to IRA terrorism.

Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.

subscribe

It is quite possible that O’Neill will be declared Chief Minister this Saturday, and amid party excitement, the ghost of reunification of the island will be revived. In recent years, Catholics have outnumbered Protestants in Northern Ireland, and the Brexit divide – which was largely rejected there – once again brought the constitutional debate about a united Ireland to the table. The agreements themselves are good, he said Friday as a possibility for the future.

“Bear in mind that partition (as the island of Ireland was called in 1921) was designed so that there would be a permanent Unionist majority. That is no longer the case,” declared Mary Lou McDonald, president of Sinn Féin on both sides of the invisible border between the two Irelands. The appointment of O’Neill as Home Rule Prime Minister, and the unrealistic possibility of a future Sinn Féin executive in Dublin, “could lead to a new constitutional settlement that ends the division”, McDonald said, upsetting many unionists. Hue warned.

“I welcome the important step taken by the DUP to be able to reclaim Northern Ireland’s autonomous executive, just as I thank the rest of Northern Ireland’s parties for the patience they have shown. After two years without a government, there is hope for a renewed power sharing (between unionists and republicans) that will strengthen our Union, return the institutions of self-governance to citizens and achieve a better future for Northern Ireland . Answer,” Sunak announced in the House of Commons.

new legislation

Another measure agreed with the British government, which the DUP has been able to present to its people as a relevant victory, is Downing Street’s promise to process the new legislation so that the EU can approve rules in the future. They are not automatic and apply immediately in Northern Ireland. They must first be submitted to the scrutiny of the Stormont Assembly (as the Northern Irish regional parliament is known). The Windsor Framework Agreement already establishes a so-called “emergency brake”, by which, with a vote of 30 delegates, the application of new Community rules in Northern Ireland can be stopped. The former guarantees now received by unionists put them, in their eyes, on the same level as the rest of the United Kingdom.

The agreement also promises additional legislation to “confirm the constitutional status of Northern Ireland” within the country, which would “confirm the sovereignty of the British Parliament over everything” relating to that part of the territory. That is, there is plenty of symbolism to appease a federalism that feels its political position increasingly vulnerable in the face of the advance of republicanism.

Follow all international information Facebook And xor in our weekly newspaper,

,