LONDON – Do you remember Brexit? It seems that Brexit is never really complete. It’s more of a verb than a noun. Leaving the European Union two years ago has proved somewhat economically draining for the UK. And Brexit continues to disrupt life in Northern Ireland, which has no functioning government as union politicians boycott how the territory was treated in the Brexit deal.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak traveled to Belfast on Friday to meet leaders of Northern Ireland’s political parties, amid speculation a deal with Europe could soon be struck to resolve UK-Northern Ireland trade tensions and deal with union objections .
Mary Lou McDonald, president of the nationalist party Sinn Féin, said after meeting Sunak: “It is now clear that significant progress has been made and that gives us great encouragement.” More critically, Jeffrey Donaldson, a leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, also a positive move to end the contradictory standoff.
After his meetings in Belfast, Sunak flew to Munich for a major security conference, where he was due to meet EU leaders on the sidelines to make a final push for a revised deal on Northern Ireland.