Irish PM urges UK to abide by post-Brexit trade deal

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin urged the UK government Friday to stand by its post-Brexit trade commitments in Northern Ireland, as Washington warned London its brinkmanship with Europe threatens peace.

Martin was visiting Belfast following anger on both sides of the Atlantic at a UK pledge to overhaul the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, agreed as part of its Brexit divorce deal with the European Union. Its requirement for checks on goods arriving from England, Scotland and Wales has infuriated unionists in Northern Ireland, who say it drives a wedge between the province and the rest of the UK. They are refusing to join a new power-sharing government in Belfast until the issue is resolved, forcing its suspension.

“There is no substitute for a substantive series of negotiations between the European Union and the United Kingdom government in respect of solving issues in relation to the protocol,” Martin told reporters in the Northern Ireland capital.

“We believe there can be a resolution of issues... but the only way to do that is through a negotiated settlement.”

Hours earlier Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, warned that the UK could forget about a free trade deal if it rewrites the protocol. “It is deeply concerning that the United Kingdom now seeks to unilaterally discard the Northern Ireland Protocol, which preserves the important progress and stability forged by the (1998 Good Friday) Accords,” which ended decades of bloodshed in the province, Pelosi tweeted.

“If the United Kingdom chooses to undermine the Good Friday Accords, the Congress cannot and will not support a bilateral free trade agreement with the UK.” A US Congress delegation jetted into Brussels on Friday and presented a united front against the UK with European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic. “We’re equally committed to protecting the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement,” Sefcovic tweeted. “Joint solutions implementing the Protocol are the only way to do so.”