Northern Ireland Protocol unsustainable, needs urgent reform: Boris Johnson  

Pro-U.K. unionists have vowed not to nominate ministers to the Northern Ireland Assembly in Belfast until the protocol governing trade is scrapped

Post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland are unviable and need urgent reform to unblock the province’s power-sharing Assembly, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on May 10.

Pro-U.K. unionists have vowed not to nominate ministers to the Northern Ireland Assembly in Belfast until the protocol governing trade is scrapped.

That has raised the prospect of paralysis at the legislature, just days after Sinn Fein nationalists became the biggest party for the first time.

Mr. Johnson and his government have repeatedly risked confrontation with the European Union [EU] by threatening to trigger a suspension clause in the protocol, which keeps Northern Ireland largely in the European single market.

But with fresh talks looming to iron out difficulties, the British Prime Minister told his Irish counterpart Micheal Martin in a call that the situation was now “very serious”.

He told Mr. Martin that the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland after 30 years of violence “was being undermined”, his office said.

Last week’s elections “further demonstrated that the protocol was not sustainable in its current form”, Downing Street said.