Latest updates: Boris Johnson visits Belfast, saying he believes a ‘sensible landing spot’ is possible in talks with EU
The Democratic Unionist party (DUP) will face a familiar choice this week: to trust or not to trust Boris Johnson. Its reward for smoothing his path to the Conservative party leadership and Downing Street has been betrayal. An Irish Sea border would happen over his dead body, he vowed, before signing the Northern Ireland protocol.
When the prime minister meets Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the MP and DUP leader, at Hillsborough Castle later today he is expected to talk up the pending legislation that would give the UK the right to override parts of the protocol.
Words don’t cut it for me. I need action … I want his words translated into clear action.
What we can’t do is accept that the British government would act unilaterally, they would pass legislation to effectively breach international law, to set aside elements of a treaty that of course this prime minister was central to designing and putting in place. Because that will cause an awful lot more problems than it will solve.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t accommodate other opinions because Northern Ireland is about compromise.
