Northern Ireland first minister poised to quit over Brexit, reports say
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Northern Ireland has been plunged into political crisis amid reports that the first minister, the DUP’s Paul Givan, is to resign over Brexit.
Such a move, reported by BBC Radio Ulster’s The Nolan Show, would threaten the future of the Stormont government and trigger the resignation of the deputy first minister, Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin’s leader in Northern Ireland. Neither leader can stay in power if the other quits.
The reported move comes just days after the DUP gave Brussels a 21 February deadline to resolve the dispute over Brexit checks and just hours after Stormont’s agriculture minister, Edwin Poots, also a DUP representative, ordered a halt to Brexit checks on food and farm products coming into Northern Ireland from Great Britain.
The resignation of the first and deputy first minister would not trigger the immediate collapse of the Stormont executive, allowing it to stumble on till the elections in May. Under the rules, the parties would have six weeks to nominate replacements.
But rivals including the Ulster Unionist party say the resignation of the two ministers will further destabilise Northern Ireland and prevent key decisions on an upcoming budget being made.
Doug Beattie, the UUP leader, said a Givan resignation would not create leverage in the negotiations over the Irish Sea border but “create more destabilisation here in Northern Ireland”. He told the BBC: “It will create more hardship for the people of Northern Ireland; [we]will not be able to get a budget agreed and through, and at the end of it all, the protocol will still be there.”
The latest DUP manoeuvres are being seen by rivals as positioning ahead of the May elections and come amid repeated threats by the party leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, to quit Stormont over the Brexit checks. The party’s popularity has fallen over its handling of Brexit, leaving Sinn Féin in pole position to be the largest party for the first time according to recent opinion polls.
The Alliance party MP Stephen Farry said the resignation of the first minister would be “an act of huge harm” to Northern Ireland.
The Northern Ireland executive would be unable to approve a three-year budget that is currently out to consultation. Also under threat would be the appointment of a victims’ commissioner to deal with Troubles legacy killings and injuries and a scheme to give householders a £200 grant against rising energy bills.
The Traditional Unionist Voice leader, Jim Allister, told the BBC’s Stephen Nolan it was “about time” the first minister resigned, saying it would be “better later than never” if Givan carried out his threat.
“There can never be a settlement on this issue,” he said of the Northern Ireland protocol. “The protocol is worse than a pandemic for our constitution position, the protocol kills the union [of the United Kingdom],” said Allister.
Guardian news
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