Northern Ireland ‘caught in middle of game of chicken’

The Sinn Fein vice president said the Stormont institutions were at risk due to an “ideological war” between the UK and the EU.

Ms O’Neill is entitled to the role of first minister in Northern Ireland after Sinn Fein emerged as the largest party in the recent Assembly election.

However, she has been denied that position due to a DUP boycott of the power-sharing institutions in Belfast in protest at the protocol deal on Irish Sea trade.

The Province’s largest unionist party insists the Irish Sea border, which requires checks on goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain, has undermined the basis for power-sharing and must be removed.

Ms O’Neill was commenting as the government signalled an intent to act unilaterally to override aspects of protocol by way of domestic legislation at Westminster.

She said issues with the protocol could only be resolved through good faith negotiations between the UK and EU, not unilateral action by Boris Johnson.

“The behaviour of the British government and Boris Johnson in terms of initiating again legislation to override an international agreement does not bode well for a good faith negotiation and I think that puts us in jeopardy in terms of the uncertainty and instability that it provides for us here,” Ms O’Neill told BBC Radio Ulster.

“It’s a game of chicken that were caught up in the middle of.”

Ms O’Neill branded the DUP stance as “shameful”.

“It’s intolerable that they’re sitting outside the Executive at a time when we have a cost-of-living crisis,” she said.

“It is absolutely shameful on their part.

“Here we are 11 days after the election when the people voted, they voted in large numbers for politics to work, they voted for parties to work together.

“We’re listening over the course of 24 hours to a situation around families struggling to provide food for their children over the summer months and what we have is no Executive in place and that’s all because the DUP are stomping their feet about a Brexit which they helped deliver.”