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N.Ireland first minister quits over post-Brexit trade rules

03 February 2022 21:53 (UTC +04:00)

Northern Ireland's first minister resigned in protest at post-Brexit trade rules on Thursday, a day after another ministertried to halt some checks on agri-food goods coming from the rest of the United Kingdom, drawing European Union anger, APA reports quoting Reuters.

Paul Givan's decision may complicate talks between the European Union and Britain to rework a politically divisive protocol governing such trade that was agreed by the London as part of its exit from the EU two years ago.

The protocol kept Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods in order to preserve a politically sensitive open border with EU member state Ireland. In so doing, though, it created an effective border in the Irish Sea, angering pro-British, pro-Brexit unionists in the province and spurring the British government to seek to rewrite the deal it signed up to.

Tensions over the protocol flared again on Wednesday when Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots, like Givan a member of the pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), ordered a halt to checks on the agri-food goods.