Premier ends debut tour with Brexit talks in Belfast
LONDON — New British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday finished his rocky debut tour of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland, where he faces a doubly difficult challenge: restoring the collapsed Belfast government and finding a solution for the Irish border after Brexit.
Since he took office a week ago, Johnson has been touring England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but it has not been a triumphal parade. After facing protests and political opposition in Scotland and Wales, Johnson met Wednesday with the leaders of Northern Ireland’s five main political parties in hopes of kickstarting efforts to restore the suspended Belfast administration.
Northern Ireland’s 1.8 million people have been without a functioning administration for 2½ years, ever since the CatholicProtestant powersharing government collapsed over a botched greenenergy project. The rift soon widened to broader cultural and political issues.
Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union has strained the bonds among the four nations that make up the United Kingdom. A majority of voters in England and Wales backed leaving in the referendum, while those in Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain.
Economists say a nodeal Brexit would be economically damaging for the whole United Kingdom and politically destabilizing for Northern Ireland, the only part of the United Kingdom to share a land border with the bloc.
A divorce agreement between Britain and the EU has foundered largely because of the 300mile border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. An invisible border is crucial to the regional economy and underpins the peace process that ended decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.