The leader of the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland DUP, Edwin Poots, announced Thursday (June 17th) that he would step down after just three weeks, as the pro-English party entered into crisis just hours after installing a new prime minister .
"I asked the president of the party to start an electoral process within the party in order to allow the election of a new leader of the Democratic Unionist party
," he said in a statement.
Earlier today on Thursday, Edwin Poots appointed Unionist MP Paul Givan, 39, a fundamentalist Protestant, as prime minister of Northern Ireland.
To read also: Brexit: the "war of the sausage" throws a cold between London and the Europeans
Edwin Poots has said he will step down after a meeting of party MPs on Thursday evening at the DUP headquarters in Belfast.
"The party asked me to stay in office until the election of my successor,"
he said in a statement.
"It has been a difficult time for the party and the country and I conveyed to the President my determination to do all I can so that unionism and Northern Ireland can be strengthened,"
he said. added.
Earlier today, Unionists and Republicans reached an agreement to maintain shared governance, with a representative from each side heading the local executive, with the aim of averting a new crisis in the British province facing post-Brexit tensions. This agreement between the DUP, attached to maintaining it within the United Kingdom, and Sinn Fein, in favor of reunification with Ireland, was reached following intense discussions under the aegis of the British Minister responsible for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis. This agreement therefore now seems compromised by the resignation of Edwin Poots, which also weakens Paul Givan's position.
The power-sharing agreement could fail and lead to the rapid organization of new elections, in a political landscape deeply shaken by Brexit.
This agreement had helped to alleviate fears of a new crisis that had paralyzed Northern Ireland for three years, following the fall of the government against the backdrop of a financial scandal.
An agreement reached in January 2020 had made it possible to restore the political institutions of the province.
The DUP and Sinn Fein must share governance under the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998, which ended three decades of bloody "unrest" between Republicans (mostly Catholics) and Unionists (mostly Protestants) .
Read also: "The sausage war" rages between the European Union and London
The last crisis was born of the resignation, as prime minister and head of the DUP, of Arlene Foster, 50, in the face of the strong dissatisfaction of her camp on the consequences of Brexit. She was vilified for her powerlessness in the face of the establishment of customs controls for goods from Great Britain, negotiated as part of the Brexit agreement and seen by unionists as an attack on the integrity of the United Kingdom .
By disrupting trade, these customs provisions applied to the province to prevent the return of a border with the Republic of Ireland and preserve peace have caused renewed tensions in Northern Ireland. Riots of unprecedented violence in years broke out in early April. They are at the heart of a dispute between the British government and the European Union. Denouncing a
“purist”
approach
of the European Union, London is trying to apply it more loosely, while Brussels calls on it to respect the commitments negotiated within the framework of Brexit.
