N. Ireland First Minister Quits Over Post-Brexit Trade Rules

BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's first minister resigned in protest at post-Brexit trade rules on Thursday 3 February 2022, a day after another minister tried to halt some checks on agri-food goods coming from the rest of the United Kingdom (UK), drawing European Union (EU) anger.

Paul Givan's decision may complicate talks between the European Union and Britain to rework a politically divisive protocol governing such trade that was agreed by the London as part of its exit from the EU two years ago.

The protocol kept Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods in order to preserve a politically sensitive open border with EU member state Ireland. In so doing, though, it created an effective border in the Irish Sea, angering pro-British, pro-Brexit unionists in the province and spurring the British government to seek to rewrite the deal it signed up to.

Tensions over the protocol flared again on Wednesday when Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots, like Minister Givan a member of the pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), ordered a halt to checks on the agri-food goods.

Minister Poots' order was not immediately implemented. His department said officials had not refused the instruction but were "considering the wider implications of fulfilling the minister's request." Trade bodies reported that goods were still being inspected at Northern Irish ports.

"Today marks the end of what has been the privilege of my lifetime," Mr Givan, who spent less than a year as chief minister in the region's devolved government, told a news conference.

The DUP has for months threatened to frustrate the checks and the regional governance over its vehement opposition to the protocol, which it believe drives a wedge between the region and the rest of the UK across the Irish Sea.

Minister Poots' attempt to stop some goods checks at customs points drew warnings to desist from Ireland, Germany and the European Commission.

Mr Givan's move will once more paralyse decision-making in Northern Ireland three months before elections.

It quickly triggered the automatic resignation of Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill of the DUP's Irish nationalist and pro-EU rivals Sinn Fein, which backs Irish unification.

While the upheaval will not necessarily lead to an early election, Sinn Fein called for one. Opinion polls suggest Sinn Fein will pass the DUP to become Northern Ireland's largest party for the first time.