Conor Burns: UK Government ‘absolutely wants negotiated solution’ with EU over Northern Ireland Protocol

Speaking at a British Irish Council meeting in Guernsey yesterday, Mr Burns stressed that the Government would use the legislation going through Parliament to alter the Protocol if further negotiations with Brussels failed to produce a breakthrough.

He said: “We want to protect Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom’s internal market at the same time as protecting the single market and goods moving through Northern Ireland.

“We absolutely want a negotiated solution with the EU.”

Mr Burns said he hoped that European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic’s mandate would be “broadened” for negotiations.

“Until that happens, we have an obligation as the Government to take the necessary legislative steps to fix the implementation of the Protocol to make it work, and therefore to unlock the challenge of devolved, restored powersharing government in Northern Ireland.”

In an interview with the Press Association, Sinn Fein Finance Minister Conor Murphy said the next Conservative prime minister should abandon Boris Johnson’s approach to the Protocol and the legacy of the Troubles.

He said the current chaos within the Tory party underlines the “futility” of the DUP boycott of the powersharing institutions.

Mr Murphy claimed that if the impasse at Stormont continues he will be forced to hand money back to the Treasury.

He said: “We are into a limbo situation now for however long the current Prime Minister stays on.

“Whether that heralds a rethink in terms of the approach to both protocol and legacy, I hope it does, but we are not certain.

“Meanwhile as we sit in suspended animation waiting for these things to play out, the people that we represent in Northern Ireland need our support and can’t get it because the DUP continue to boycott our own institutions.”

Mr Murphy was speaking after the meeting of the British-Irish Council in Guernsey, which was not attended by the DUP. He said: “It is always a very useful discussion because there are a lot of shared challenges from all of the administrations.

“There is a degree of bemusement because the DUP had originally intended to come and then didn’t arrive.

“It didn’t prevent us from contributing. Their boycott of this doesn’t stop the arrangements working.”