Communities must be heard in N Ireland says Shadow Minister

NORTHERN IRELAND’S Shadow Secretary of State has said that communities must be heard during a visit to areas where recent violence flared.

Louise Haigh, inset, challenged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to follow in her footsteps after visiting the peace wall gates at Lanark Way in west Belfast, which last week witnessed dramatic scenes of disorder, and to convene multi-party talks.

Ms Haigh, Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley, said she has been hearing a “real sense of angst and concern” in communities that they are “simply not being listened to or heard”.

“They feel they are not being represented in politics, they desperately need to see leadership and conciliation, and that’s why I have been calling on the Prime Minister to convene multi-party talks in Northern Ireland and to show some of that leadership to demonstrate to communities that politics absolutely works for them,” she said.

Violence flared in locations across Northern Ireland on successive nights amid anger among unionists and loyalists at postBrexit arrangements surrounding the Northern Ireland Protocol, as well as the decision not to pursue prosecutions against members of Sinn Fein for alleged coronavirus regulation breaches at a funeral. Ms Haigh’s visit came shortly after the European Commission had warned the Northern Ireland Protocol in the Brexit divorce settlement remains the only way to prevent the return of a hard border with the Republic.

The warning was issued in a commission statement after talks between its vice-president Maros Sefcovic and Brexit Minister Lord Frost aimed at resolving differences over the implementation of the protocol broke up without an agreement. A UK Government spokesman said that while there had been “some positive momentum”, a number of “difficult issues” remain to be resolved.