London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

Britain digs in over N Ireland in simmering Brexit trade row

Britain digs in over N Ireland in simmering Brexit trade row

Britain yesterday hit back at French President Emmanuel Macron’s uncompromising stance on Brexit, in a simmering row over new trading arrangements for Northern Ireland.
Macron on Thursday warned London that it was “not serious” to review agreements signed last December, just weeks before the UK left the European single market and customs union.

“Nothing is renegotiable,” he said before heading to the G7 leaders summit in Cornwall, southwest England.

But Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab insisted that Brussels should be more flexible in its approach to Northern Ireland, which shares the UK’s only land border with the EU.

Under the so-called Northern Ireland protocol, checks are required on some goods heading to the British province from mainland Britain - England, Scotland and Wales. But that has angered unionist communities who say it has driven a wedge between them and the rest of the UK, and blamed it for a resurgence of violence.

Controls have been suspended, and London has extended a grace period for checks on deliveries of chilled meat products to the province.

“The change must come from the European Commission side,” said Raab. “We are not negotiating or haggling the integrity of the United Kingdom,” he told Sky News.

Talks to try to resolve the issue broke up in London without agreement on Wednesday, with Brussels threatening punitive action if London fails to implement the agreement.

The arrangement - to prevent unchecked goods heading into the EU through member state Ireland - effectively means Northern Ireland is still part of the European single market.

The row threatened to overshadow the G7 summit, with reports that US President Joe Biden was angered at the potential harm to the 1998 peace deal that brought an end to three decades of violence over British rule in Northern Ireland.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson played down reports of a rift on Thursday, after the pair met for 90 minutes of talks on the eve of the G7 leaders meeting.

But the issue is unlikely to go away, with Johnson due to meet European leaders keen to resolve the stand-off at the summit this weekend.

And in Northern Ireland itself, thousands of people gathered in west Belfast on Thursday night in defiance of coronavirus restrictions to protest against the protocol.

Police estimated that more than 3,000 people turned out unlawfully and marched on the Shankill Road.

Social media footage showed the burning of a united Ireland banner. Anger at the protocol has already led to the resignation of First Minister Arlene Foster and her replacement with a more hardline unionist who has promised a tougher line.

Her successor as Democratic Unionist Party leader, Edwin Poots, on Thursday called for the protocol to be scrapped entirely as it was not workable.
“It has to go,” he said.

Foster was more restrained after a meeting yesterday of the British-Irish Council, which includes the UK and Irish governments, and heads of the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The protocol was causing an “imbalance” in the relationships between pro-UK unionists and nationalists in favour of union of Ireland in Northern Ireland, she said. “We need to get that back on an even keel,” she told a news conference after the meeting at the Lough Erne resort in Enniskillen, near the border with Ireland.

Ireland’s Prime Minister Micheal Martin welcomed Biden’s intervention, and said “the political will is there within the European Union to get this issue resolved”.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×