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LONDON: There would be “profound and serious” implications if parties in Northern Ireland failed to agree on the creation of a new executive to govern, Britain’s minister for the province said on Wednesday.
A power-sharing agreement between Irish nationalists and their pro-British rivals collapsed in January and both sides have missed a series of deadlines to restore the assembly. The latest deadline is for Thursday.
“Our focus is on seeing that the executive is restored and I have been clear on not wanting to pre-empt what may happen should that not be the case. Obviously there would be profound and serious implications in that context,” James Brokenshire told Parliament.
Meanwhile, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Wednesday it will be practically and legally “extremely difficult” to find ways to maintain an open border with Northern Ireland after Brexit, even with the sympathy and goodwill of the EU behind it.
The border between the Irish Republic, an EU member, and the British province of Northern Ireland will be the only land frontier between the UK and the EU once Britain leaves the bloc in early 2019.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she wants the border to be as seamless as possible, and EU negotiating guidelines call for the avoidance of a “hard border.”
But with the exact nature of Britain’s future ties with the bloc unclear, solutions to the border issue have yet to be proposed.
“From my meetings in Brussels and elsewhere, there is a real understanding of the issues that are unique to Ireland, a sympathy for us and a lot of goodwill,” Varadkar told a conference.
“But turning those into practical solutions that will be written in law is going to be extremely difficult... The Irish issues, including avoiding an economic border, will not be easy to solve.”
Varadkar, who took over from Enda Kenny as prime minister this month, maintained his predecessor’s view that Dublin would ask the EU for specific assistance in dealing with the economic fallout from Brexit.
Ireland’s top civil servant overseeing Brexit planning said last month that one of the areas being examined was a potential exemption from EU state aid rules, enabling Ireland to provide financial support to companies adversely affected by Brexit.