British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (1st L) and British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Julian Smith (1st R) are greeted by Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster (2nd R) of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill of Sinn Fein in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, on Jan. 13, 2020. Boris Johnson said Monday during a visit to Belfast, Northern Ireland that he hopes and is "confident" to secure a zero-tariff, zero-quota agreement with the European Union (EU). Photo:Xinhua

The leader of Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein on Sunday accused UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson of sacrificing Northern Ireland to shore up his own enfeebled position.

Johnson's government will on Monday introduce legislation to rewrite its post-Brexit commitments on Northern Ireland, but denied that it was breaking its treaty obligations to the European Union.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis insisted the bill was "lawful" and necessary to fix problems in the EU protocol, so as to restore a power-sharing government in the troubled territory.

But Sinn Fein's all-Ireland president Mary Lou McDonald said that the bill would unilaterally break the UK's EU withdrawal treaty, and pointed to Johnson's narrow escape in a Conservative leadership vote on June 6.

"It is disgraceful to use the north of Ireland, to use Ireland, as a bargaining chip," she told Sky News, accusing the Conservatives of "games and gamesmanship."

The government's proposals were rather "designed to boost the ego, the leadership ambitions of either Boris Johnson or one of his would-be successors", McDonald added.

"It's dishonorable stuff, by any measure extraordinary stuff."

Lewis, also speaking in a Sky interview, said the Northern Ireland Protocol was disrupting trade and lacked support from the territory's pro-UK unionist parties.

"So it's right that we repair that," he said, adding that the need to protect a 1998 peace agreement in Northern Ireland had "primacy" over the protocol.

McDonald countered that public opinion and most lawmakers in Northern Ireland backed the protocol.

In a historic first, Sinn Fein emerged as the biggest party in Northern Ireland elections in May. But the Democratic Unionist Party argues that the protocol is jeopardizing Northern Ireland's status in the UK and is boycotting the local government, leaving it in limbo under the 1998 deal. 

AFP