DUP says Biden visit has not changed Northern Ireland political dynamic

BELFAST (Reuters) -The leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) said U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to Northern Ireland will not change his party’s more than year-long boycott of the region’s power-sharing government.

“It doesn’t change the political dynamic in Northern Ireland. We know what needs to happen,” Donaldson told reporters when asked if the president’s visit made any difference to his party’s stance.

“We believe the (British) government needs to go further in terms of protecting Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom and our ability to trade within the UK internal market. That’s what needs to happen to enable us to move towards the restoration of the political institutions.”

Donaldson said he would put forward proposals to the British government within the next few weeks on what the DUP think needs to happen to rebuild the cross-community consensus in Northern Ireland. The party is not working to any deadline, he added.

Biden met Northern Irish political leaders, including Donaldson, one-by-one before a speech where he encouraged them to restore the devolved assembly that was fundamental to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Donaldson said the president made clear that he was not in Belfast to interfere.

“I think the president’s speech today was much more balanced than we have heard perhaps in the past,” Donaldson said.

(Reporting by Amanda Ferguson and Conor Humphries, writing by Padraic Halpin, editing by William James)