PM claims protocol must be ‘fixed’

BORIS Johnson has claimed the Northern Ireland Protocol has become a “real problem” and must be “fixed” to ensure the country can agree a new powersharing administration.

The UK and the European Union have come to fresh blows over the Brexit treaty after reports emerged that the Foreign Secretary is drawing up emergency legislation to suspend elements of the protocol.

Yesterday, the PM argued that without changes to the treaty, which is designed to prevent a hard border in Ireland, a new executive in Northern Ireland could not be formed as per the rules set out in the 1998 peace agreement.

But Brussels has raised the possibility of suspending the entire Brexit deal if the threat is carried out.

Sinn Fein, which supports the protocol, has become the largest party in the Assembly for the first time.

But the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has ruled out entering into a new powersharing administration without significant changes to the protocol which governs post-brexit trading arrangements.

The impasse has led to concerns in Westminster that the protocol could spark sectarian violence in a region still scarred by the Troubles.

The Prime Minister told broadcasters that the “institutions set up under the Good Friday Agreement aren’t functioning” and that political governance in Northern Ireland has “collapsed”.

Speaking in Stoke-ontrent, he said: “The people of Northern Ireland need leadership, they need a regional, a provincial government… they haven’t got that.

“That’s a real, real problem.

“And the reason they don’t have that is because there’s one community in Northern Ireland that won’t accept the way the protocol works at present – we’ve got to fix that.”