Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has urged Northern Ireland politicians to return to power-sharing as he hailed the “bravery” and “perseverance” of negotiators of the Good Friday Agreement.
In a statement released on Monday marking exactly 25 years since the signing of the historic peace deal, Sunak praised the “difficult decisions” taken and “political imagination” that helped put an end to 30 years of violence in the province.
“So we must get on with the business of governance,” he said.
The prime minister confirmed he will meet U.S. President Joe Biden ahead of a commemorative event in Belfast to mark the treaty signing.
Biden will give a keynote speech at Ulster University’s city centre campus and will not visit Stormont owing to the ongoing political stalemate that has left Northern Ireland without a functioning government for over a year.
Sunak said there is a need to “recommit to redoubling our efforts” to deliver on the promise made when the deal was signed on April 10 1998.
Reflecting on the “beginning of a new chapter,” the prime minister said the agreement “continues to enjoy huge international support,” as demonstrated by the president’s visit.
“As we look forward, we will celebrate those who took difficult decisions, accepted compromise, and showed leadership—showing bravery, perseverance, and political imagination,” he said.
Biden Visit
Urging Stormont’s main political parties to work together, Sunak said it was his “mission, duty, and responsibility” to “deliver for people in Northern Ireland.”“We stand ready to work with our partners in the Irish government and the local parties to ensure that the institutions are up and running again as soon as possible,” he said.
“There is work to be done.”
Downing Street confirmed details of the prime minister’s engagement with Biden, who will arrive in the UK on Tuesday evening, where Sunak will meet him off Air Force One.
“The President will then undertake a programme of engagements including a meeting with the Prime Minister,” the statement said.
Biden is due to travel to the Republic of Ireland after his Belfast visit, where he is expected to take part at events in Dublin, County Louth, and County Mayo.
MI5 had raised the province’s terror threat level from substantial to severe, meaning an attack is highly likely.
On Wednesday, Sunak will address Belfast’s Queen’s University’s Agreement 25 conference and host a special gala dinner to commemorate the anniversary.
His refocused efforts on bringing an end to the political impasse within the province include a newly announced investment summit to boost Northern Ireland’s “thriving” economy.
The Northern Ireland Investment Summit will be led by the Department for Business and Trade in partnership with the Northern Ireland Office and Invest Northern Ireland.
Downing Street said the event will take place across two days in September this year in Belfast.
Sunak said: “Northern Ireland—like the rest of the UK—is teeming with opportunities, talent and ingenuity.
“The biggest thing we can do to improve people’s standard of living and secure a prosperous and thriving Northern Ireland, is economic growth.
“That’s something I’m relentlessly focused on delivering.”
‘Deadlines Are Deadly’
Despite the ambitious plans, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said no-one could put a timeline on when power-sharing would be back up and running.He told BBC Radio 4’s “Westminster Hour”: “Anybody who is predicting a date by which the executive would go back in Northern Ireland would be someone who can also sell you a four-leaf clover.
“No one knows—deadlines are deadly in Northern Ireland term.”
Writing in The Telegraph, he added: “Across a range of measures, the people of Northern Ireland are being directly impacted because of an ongoing lack of locally accountable devolved government.
“The UK government wants to see the Northern Ireland institutions delivering better public services, more investment and a stronger Union based on prosperity … there is no surer way to achieve that than for political parties to come together to get on with the job of delivering on the people’s priorities and to make Northern Ireland work.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Northern Ireland is standing at “another crossroads” 25 years after the agreement that he said represents the “very best of what our politics can achieve, the triumph of hope over division, of peace over strife and of prosperity over conflict.”
“With political stalemate at Stormont and a period of difficult Anglo–Irish relations, we must use the spirit and the trust built by the architects of the Good Friday Agreement to push us forward to another 25 years of peace and prosperity,” he said.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), has insisted the political vacuum in the nation caused by his party’s refusal to reenter Stormont is not to blame.
In February last year the DUP withdrew its support for the power-sharing institutions formed by the Good Friday Agreement as it protests against post-Brexit trading arrangements.
Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he will be “intensifying” talks with Sunak in the coming weeks to try to get Stormont running again.
“We’re working towards having the institutions up and running in the next few months,” he told RTE’s “This Week” programme.
