LONDON (Reuters) – Post-Brexit checks on agri-food goods coming into Northern Ireland are continuing, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday, and it is up to Belfast to resolve a dispute with the European Union on them.
Tensions over the Northern Ireland protocol, signed as part of Britain’s exit from the EU, flared on Wednesday when the British province’s Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots ordered an immediate halt to checks on agri-food goods coming into the region from the rest of the United Kingdom.
“Checks are continuing to take place at ports in Northern Ireland as they have done before,” Johnson’s spokesman told reporters.
“We are monitoring the situation closely and keeping the legal position under review …. The operation of those checks is a matter for the Northern Ireland executive … We want the executive to resolve this issue in the first instance and we are in close contact with them.”
(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Kylie MacLellan; editing by William James)
