Ireland, UK hold summit on Brexit

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has hosted his Irish counterpart Micheal Martin as they try to end a dispute over post-brexit trade in Northern Ireland that has stymied power-sharing.

The two leaders met in Blackpool, northwest England, with signs that frosty ties are thawing over the issue that has paralysed Northern Irish politics and put London at loggerheads with both Brussels and Dublin.

In a sign of renewed commitment to resolving the row, Mr Sunak became the first British Prime Minister since 2007 to open the biannual British-irish Council summit.

Downing Street said earlier that Mr Sunak was “determined” to help restore the power-sharing assembly in Belfast “as soon as possible”.

It collapsed in February over opposition from pro-uk unionists to the Northern Ireland Protocol governing postBrexit trade.

The pact was signed separately from the trade and co-operation deal that cemented the UK’S formal departure from the EU in January 2021.

But its implementation has proven a flashpoint for disagreement between the bloc, member state Ireland and Britain, and it even threatens a possible EU-UK trade war.

The protocol kept Northern Ireland in the European single market and customs union, stipulating checks on goods moving from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland.

The protocol was designed to prevent a “hard” border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, which was a key plank of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that largely ended three decades of violent conflict.

But it has enraged hardline unionists, including the Democratic Unionist Party, leading to their boycott of the Stormont assembly in Belfast earlier this year.

Elections in May further complicated the situation, after pro-irish party Sinn Fein won a historic first election.

London, which is risking EU reprisals by trying to overhaul the protocol, has threatened a new vote. But this week it extended a deadline “to create the time” for talks with the European Commission.