LISTEN: Boris Johnson meets with Arlene Foster to discuss Northern Ireland protocol

By Sam Blewett and David Young, PA

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a meeting with Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster and DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds about the Northern Ireland Protocol, which continues to be a contentious issue.

The Prime Minister said the protocol should guarantee the peace process and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Loyalists have expressed growing discontent at what they see as measures threatening Northern Ireland’s place in the UK.

Consent was enshrined in the peace process.

The British Government has unilaterally extended until October some grace periods of light-touch regulation on goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain, which had been due to end at the end of this month.

Mr Johnson said: “We are taking some lawful, technical measures to build up confidence in the East-West operation as well.

“We think it is lawful, indeed we think it is right, in view of the impact on the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement and the need to have consent from both communities.”

Mr Johnson also joined Mrs Foster at a vaccine centre in Lakeland Forum in Enniskillen, which is in her Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency.

Boris Johnson has been snubbed by deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill during his visit to Northern Ireland after he declined a political meeting with Sinn Fein.

Ms O’Neill refused to welcome the Prime Minister to Belfast on Friday in her Stormont role after a request for a meeting with her and Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald was not accepted.

After he declined the political meeting, requested amid growing tensions over post-Brexit restrictions, Ms O’Neill, Sinn Fein’s deputy leader, refused to meet him at all.

Sinn Fein’s John Finucane criticised Mr Johnson’s fly-in visit which comes after his party’s long-standing request for a meeting continues to be ignored. 

The north Belfast MP says his attempt to try and recruit the Deputy First Minister to serve his own political agenda.

Ms O’Neill said: “Mary Lou McDonald and myself have a long-standing request to meet with the British Prime Minister to discuss a number of commitments which he and his Government have reneged on in the New Decade New Approach over this past year, and also his reckless and partisan approach to the Irish Protocol. He did not facilitate the meeting.

“I have no plans to meet with him today.”

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Michelle O’Neill was invited to join the PM on the visit.”