Nothing off table over NI protocol – Raabon May 8, 2022 at 12:10 pm

“Nothing is off the table” in the UK’s attempt to “fix” the Northern Ireland Protocol, Dominic Raab has said.

The deputy prime minister told the BBC the protocol was an “obstacle to stability” in the country.

He was speaking after Sinn Féin secured the most seats in the assembly election, a first for a nationalist party in Northern Ireland.

The protocol – agreed between the UK and EU – is a post-Brexit deal aimed at preventing a hard border in Ireland.

It keeps Northern Ireland inside the EU’s single market for goods, but it also creates a new trade border with the rest of the UK.

The Democratic Unionist Party, who are opposed to the protocol, arguing it undermines Northern Ireland’s place in the union, say they will not allow the formation of a government in Northern Ireland unless there are changes to the deal.

The UK government has accused the EU of applying the protocol too rigidly, while Brussels accepts it is causing difficulties for businesses and has proposed a package of measures to reduce its practical impacts.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Morning show, Mr Raab said: “We cannot have the disruption that we’ve seen to trade flows between Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain and the impact that has on the constitutional integrity of the UK.

“That is itself what is putting at risk the Good Friday Agreement, and we have now got to fix it.”

The Good Friday Agreement was a peace deal signed in 1998 that helped end decades of violence in Northern Ireland. It included setting up a power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly.

Mr Raab refused to say whether action on the Northern Ireland Protocol would be included in Tuesday’s Queen’s Speech.

BBC political correspondent Chris Mason understands the government will signal its willingness to change the law on the protocol in the Queen’s Speech, without committing to do so immediately.

Speaking on BBC Northern Ireland’s Sunday Politics, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said he will meet with the leaders of the Stormont parties to discuss re-establishing the assembly.

Mr Lewis added: “The UK government’s position is we want to secure a deal [on the protocol] with the EU – we’re very clear about that. We have worked very hard on that for over a year now across a series of conversations, we made proposals.

“The EU haven’t shown any flexibility.”

The deadlock could increase tensions with Brussels.

Ireland’s Europe minister Thomas Byrne called on the UK to “engage in a renewed way with the European Union” on the issue.

He added that “a decisive majority” of assembly members elected to Stormont want to make the protocol work.