N. Ireland government on brink of collapse amid Brexit dispute

Northern Ireland’s government is on the brink of collapse amid an acrimonious row over the Brexit deal that threatens to poison relations between the U.K. and European Union.

On Wednesday night, Edwin Poots, Northern Ireland’s agriculture minister and a member of the Democratic Unionist Party, ordered officials to halt checks on goods coming into the province’s ports as required under the Brexit agreement. The move sparked anger in Dublin and Brussels, where officials said the decision breaches international law.

Adding to the uncertainty, DUP First Minister Paul Givan is set to announce his resignation as early as Thursday, according to RTE. His exit would likely trigger the collapse of the region’s power-sharing assembly, paralyzing government ahead of local elections in May that polls suggest the DUP is set to lose ground in.

“This is a cynical and contrived move by the DUP,” Alliance Party Leader Naomi Long told the BBC. “It is playing nasty political games with people’s everyday lives.”

The moves risk damaging relations between the U.K. and EU ahead of a key meeting between Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic. The two are set to discuss changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol, the most controversial part of the entire Brexit negotiations.

Under the deal, Northern Ireland was effectively kept in the EU’s single market to avoid creating a hard border on the island of Ireland—but goods moving into the region from the rest of the U.K. would be subject to customs checks. Over time, the protocol has become a political sore: Britain has threatened to suspend it unilaterally unless it is changed; the EU has accused the U.K. of being reluctant to implement a binding deal; and the DUP has pushed for it to be scrapped entirely.

A “Stunt”

Givan’s departure would trigger the resignation of Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill, making it impossible for the Executive to make any significant decisions and hampering progress on issues including the protocol.

Under the Good Friday agreement, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister—one unionist and one nationalist—have equal powers and one cannot be in place without the other. The DUP’s rivals criticized the order to suspend customs checks as political maneuvering ahead of an election.

“This stunt is an attempt by the DUP to unlawfully interfere with domestic, and international law,” O’Neill said in a tweet. The DUP is “fixated on their own priorities, which are clearly at odds with where the wider community is at.”

Poots’s move also threatens to set up a clash between the U.K. and EU. Britain’s foot-dragging on implementing the protocol, such as by unilaterally and indefinitely refusing to carry out obligations such as health checks on food products crossing the Irish Sea, has already soured relations with the EU and prompted criticisms that the U.K. is breaching the Brexit agreement.

Breach of Law

The decision to halt checks is “an absolute breach of international law,” EU financial services commissioner Mairead McGuinness told RTE Radio. It “has created uncertainty and unpredictability,” she added.

“The protocol is part of an international agreement,” Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said. “It was agreed and ratified by the U.K. and the EU, and its implementation is not only part of an international treaty but it’s part of international law,” he added. “It’s essentially playing politics with legal obligations.”

An EU spokesperson said Sefcovic will remind the U.K. that controls on goods arriving in Northern Ireland are an essential part of the agreement that allows Northern Ireland to have access to the single market.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave no indication that he would overrule Poots’s decision when asked about it on Thursday. Speaking on a visit to Blackpool, Johnson said it is “crazy” to “have checks on goods that are basically circulating within the single market of the U.K.”

Checks Continue

His official spokesman, Max Blain, said that border checks are continuing to take place at ports in Northern Ireland as they have done before.

The Northern Irish Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs held a call with the region’s biggest logistics firms and trade bodies on Wednesday and told them that customs processes will continue as normal.

“There are still checks going on, and vehicles are still expected to go in,” said Stephen McAneney, managing director of Allied Fleet Services, a customs agency in Northern Ireland. “It’s just created a lot of uncertainty that’s not needed.”