Relations between Northern Ireland and Britain are the worst in 30 years because of Brexit – Fianna Fáil leader
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Relations between Dublin and London are the worst they have been in 30 years because of Brexit, the leader of Fianna Fáil has said.
The Guardian
Micheál Martin, said the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, and his British counterpart, Theresa May, appeared to have no substantive working relationship and went for long periods without contact.
Martin’s party, like the Democratic Unionist party, is in a confidence-and-supply arrangement with Varadkar’s Fine Gael party. He said he was fully aware of the “constructive and chaotic nature” of politics in London but that the two governments still needed to develop and maintain a constructive relationship.
“I genuinely cannot see how it is constructive for our minister for foreign affairs to take the time to issue a statement condemning a two-year-old video issued by a Tory backbencher – or for the government to maintain an ongoing public commentary on British politics,” he said.
He went on to criticise Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party for deliberately ignoring the duty of Dublin to protect the interests of that country’s nationalist population, who are neither represented in Westminster nor the local assembly because of the collapse of the power-sharing deal.
