Lack of contact four days after becoming UK PM may further strain Anglo-Irish relations

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Four days after becoming prime minister, Boris Johnson has yet to make a phone call to his Irish counterpart.

Leo Varadkar appears to have been pushed back in the queue with no arrangements yet in place for the conventional call that takes place when new leaders assume office in Ireland and the UK.

Johnson has already spoken to five leaders around the world including Donald Trump on Friday, who later revealed he talked about doing a trade deal “five times” the size of existing arrangements with the UK.

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Also on Friday, Johnson contacted the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to discuss a Brexit transition and in his first two days of office he spoke to Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Claude Juncker.

The lack of contact with the taoiseach will add to the existing strains in Anglo-Irish relations since Johnson assumed power, with new tensions over remarks on the risks to Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.

Varadkar said on Friday evening that “more and more people in Northern Ireland will come to question the union” if the UK crashed out of the EU, putting the region, which voted to remain, into a new historical chapter with the rest of the island of Ireland.

“People who you might describe as moderate nationalists, or moderate Catholics, who are more or less happy with the status quo, will look towards a united Ireland. And I think increasingly you see liberal Protestants and unionists who will start to ask where they feel more at home,” he said at a summer school in Donegal.

“One of the things that ironically could really undermine the union of the UK is a hard Brexit, both for Northern Ireland and for Scotland, and that is a problem they are going to have to face.”

Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) Congratulations to @borisjohnson on his election as party leader. Look forward to an early engagement on #Brexit, Northern Ireland and bilateral relations

His remarks earned a sharp rebuke from the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) MP Ian Paisley Jr who said his intervention was “unhelpful and unnecessarily aggressive”.

DUP Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson said the “hysterical and self-centred” response of the Irish government to the demands of the UK prime minister to have the backstop removed from any exit deal speaks volumes.

“The megaphone reaction demonstrates that the blatant attempts by Leo Varadkar and co to use the Irish border as a means of undermining Britain’s referendum has backfired on them and they know it.

“The Irish government walked the world stage and styled themselves as the victims of British aggression. ‘Poor little Ireland’ may have worked in the past but people are growing tired of the same old tune. The game is up.

“They have overplayed their hand and they need to change course.”

Varadkar also said he would need to meet Johnson to understand his “real red lines” on Brexit, and that Ireland had shown in the past that it could be flexible.

Johnson has already spoken to other leaders in the UK including Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, and Michelle O’Neill, the head of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland.

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On Friday Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney, described Johnson’s comments on Brexit as “unhelpful” and said he appeared to be putting the UK on a “collision course” with the EU.

He made his remarks after what he described as a “useful” meeting with Julian Smith, the new Northern Ireland secretary, who went to Belfast for a series of meetings aimed at getting the Stormont assembly up and running again.

Downing Street has been approached for comment.