Sunak warns DUP over dismantling Assembly
Prime Minister says that ‘devolved government working at full capacity can help the Union thrive’
RISHI SUNAK has told the Democratic Unionist Party not to collapse the Northern Irish assembly again because it would risk the Union.
The DUP ended its two-year boycott of the Northern Ireland Assembly last week after accepting Mr Sunak’s deal on post-brexit trading arrangements.
Stormont has not functioned for 10 of the 26 years since the Belfast/good Friday Agreement was signed because at least one half of the mandatory twoparty coalition has walked out, harming public trust in devolved government.
The Prime Minister warned that proving power-sharing could work was the best argument against Irish reunification as he visited the restored Northern Ireland Assembly yesterday.
As part of his deal Whitehall officials will screen all new laws to ensure they do not harm trade between Britain and Northern Ireland. “For those of us who want to see the Union thrive, there is a particular responsibility to keep winning the argument for it and bringing others with us,” Mr Sunak said.
“And the best way to do that is to show that Northern Ireland works for everyone. That means devolved government functioning at maximum capacity,” he added, writing in the Belfast Telegraph.
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’neill, the new First Minister of Northern Ireland, predicted a reunification referendum within a decade on Saturday. Mary Lou Mcdonald, her party president, had earlier said Irish unity was within “touching distance”.
Ms O’neill led Sinn Fein to its first victory in Assembly elections in May 2022 but was unable to take up the role of First Minister before Saturday because of the DUP boycott.
The Republican party warned Mr Sunak to remain impartial over calling a border poll in a meeting at Stormont Castle, The Telegraph understands.
The first nationalist to be first minister should focus on the “day-to-day” concerns of people and not “constitutional change”, Mr Sunak said before leaving Northern Ireland. The Belfast/ Good Friday Agreement states the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, currently Chris Heaton-harris, must call a referendum if it “appears likely” a majority wants a united Ireland. Mr Heaton-harris said the conditions were “not met” at this time. Any border poll in Northern Ireland has to be matched with a referendum in the Republic.
While polls show large support for reunification in the Republic, they produce a majority in favour of remaining part of the UK in Northern Ireland.
It came as Rishi Sunak suggested Sir Keir Starmer was “on the side” of a major Islamist group and suggested he was a “terrorist sympathiser”. The Labour leader represented the extremist organisation Hizb ut-tahrir in court during his legal career before he became an MP.
Mr Sunak was speaking in a Talk Radio interview with Piers Morgan.
A spokesman for Sir Keir said: “Keir oversaw the first ever prosecution of senior members of Al-qaeda, the jailing of the airline liquid bomb plotters and the deportation of countless terrorists.”
‘People don’t want talk of a border poll, they want the Executive to deliver on health and housing’