LAST UPDATE | 16 Mar 2023
HUNDREDS OF SPECIALIST police officers from England and Wales will be needed in Northern Ireland as part of a massive security operation during a visit by US President Joe Biden, PSNI Chief Constable Simon Byrne has said.
Biden has confirmed he will visit Northern Ireland and the Republic as part of the celebrations around the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement next month.
Byrne, who is currently in Washington, said it would be a “unique policing operation” for which the PSNI would require support.
“It is going to be a stretch and it is going to be a huge policing operation,” he told the BBC.
Byrne added: “We are in close dialogue already with colleagues in England and Wales because we are likely to be asking for hundreds of specialist officers to come into Northern Ireland to support what will be a unique policing operation.
“We are really proud to play our part in 25 years of all the good news and optimism that fell out of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.
“If you think of the busy period across our summer months, we don’t normally ask for help from other parts of the UK.
“An operation like this, even if we are at full resource, we will have to rely on some specialist support.
“The scale of this means it will be a bigger ask than normal.
“My anticipation is that hundreds of officers from England and Wales will support what we are doing.”
He added: “We are a strong and resilient organisation and we have shown time and time again that we can step up to the challenge even in tough times.
“This is an operation which has been very carefully planned, we are getting advice and learning from recent events elsewhere in the UK and we want to do our part in making sure everybody can enjoy a celebration of the Agreement, and move around peacefully and without interruption.”
Byrne has previously raised concerns about PSNI resources due to an ongoing funding shortfall. He said that would form part of his message during meetings in the US.
Westminster MPs will get their first chance to vote on Rishi Sunak’s new deal with the EU on post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland next week.
Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt said the House will be asked on Wednesday to approve regulations to implement the so-called Stormont brake element of the Windsor Framework.
Downing Street said the measure – which potentially gives the UK a veto over the imposition of new EU rules in Northern Ireland – was the “most significant part” of the agreement.
“We believe this meets the commitment the Prime Minster made to have a vote on the new arrangements focused on an issue which is at the heart of the framework,” the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said.
With Labour having made clear they will support the deal in Parliament, the statutory instrument (SI) to implement the brake mechanism is expected to pass comfortably.
But it will not necessarily lead to the return of the powersharing executive in Stormont, which has been suspended since the DUP – the largest unionist party in the assembly – walked out in protest at the way the Northern Ireland Protocol was operating.
While DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has acknowledged the framework is an improvement on the protocol – part of Boris Johnson’s Brexit Withdrawal Agreement with the EU – he has said “fundamental problems” remain.
Mr Sunak could also face a backbench rebellion by Tory hardliners in the European Research Group (ERG) who are studying the fine print of the framework before deciding whether to back it.
It is my current assessment that there remains key areas of concern which require further clarification, re-working and change as well as seeing further legal text.@J_Donaldson_MP https://t.co/LEwXjBRphN
— DUP (@duponline) March 14, 2023
Downing Street insists it deals with the main difficulties with the protocol, allowing the free flow of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland without the need for routine customs checks so long as they are not destined for the Republic.
The brake mechanism enables a minority of Stormont MLAs to formally flag concerns about the imposition of new EU laws in Northern Ireland, potentially leading to a UK Government veto.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said that while the SI – which will be published on Monday – would not be amendable by MPs, the Government remained open to speaking to the DUP and others on any questions they may have.
“There are elements of how the framework is enacted which we do want to discuss extensively with the DUP, particularly around the Stormont brake and how that works in practice,” he said.
“They will be an important part of that, as will the other political parties.”
When asked today about the vote, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said: “Ultimately the decision on when to have a vote is a decision for the Prime Minister and the British government”.
“We’ll be having a European Council meeting next week, next Thursday and Friday, so that’s when we’ll discuss it as EU prime ministers – so I suppose those dates were coming sooner or later, but ultimately it’s a call for the British Prime Minister rather than for me. And I imagine he feels he has very strong support for it – not just from his own party, but cross-party support from Labour and others as well.”
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