LONDON: The UK government has released its strongest appeal yet to unionists in Northern Ireland to re-establish the power-sharing government after Brexit disrupted a fine political balance.
The Conservative government called on the pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party to embrace “real leadership” and follow predecessors who forged Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace agreement, which ended 3 decades of violence against British rule.
The DUP has been boycotting the divided region’s government at Stormont over post-Brexit trading dealings agreed with the EU, despite supporting the UK’s exit from the EU.
The party has been under pressure from London, Brussels, Dublin, and Washington, peaking in a trip to the island last week by US President Joe Biden.
Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris was unusually blunt in a speech to a gathering marking the 25th anniversary of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord.
The minister said everyone in Northern Ireland wanted economic prosperity, better public services, and a brighter future for their children.
Threat to Northern Ireland’s place in UK
He said that the biggest threat to Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, the union is failing to deliver on set priorities.
He added that others who share that pro-UK view should prioritize the union, restore the devolved institutions and start delivering for the public of Northern Ireland.
While citing the compromises forged by staunch unionists in 1998, Heaton-Harris states that a real leader knows when to say yes and how to do so.
However, Jeffrey Donaldson, DUP leader, said the party would not go into submission.
He tweeted that the good and great can lecture us all they want for a cheap round of applause, but it would not change the political reality.
He said that political institutions only work when there is cross-community consensus.
