LONDON (AP) – Police and politicians in Northern Ireland on Monday called for calm after a third night of violence that caused Protestant youths to set fire and bombarded officers with bricks and petrol bombs.
The flare-up comes amid growing tensions over trade rules to Northern Ireland after Brexit and the worsening of relations between the parties in the Belfast government with power-sharing.
Northern Ireland police said officers were attacked in London on Sunday night, and there was also unrest in two pro-British union areas near Belfast. Police said most of those involved were teenagers.
Chief Superintendent Darrin Jones condemns the “senseless and reckless criminal conduct that does nothing but harm the community.”
The unrest followed unrest Friday and Saturday in unions in and around Belfast and Londonderry, also known as Derry, where cars were set on fire and projectiles and petrol bombs were hurled at police officers. Police said 27 officers were injured, and eight people were charged, the youngest a boy of 13.
Britain’s economic split from the European Union at the end of 2020 shook the delicate political balance in Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom where some people identify themselves as British and others as Irish.
A new trade agreement between the UK and the EU has imposed customs and border controls on some goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. The arrangement was designed to avoid checks between Northern Ireland and Ireland, a member of the EU, because an open Irish border helped support the peace process built on the Good Friday agreement in 1998.
The agreement put an end to decades of violence involving Irish Republicans, British loyalists and British armed forces, in which more than 3,000 people died. But union members say the new checks come down to a new border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK
The Democratic Unionist Party, which jointly rules Northern Ireland with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, has called for the Brexit agreement to be scrapped.
Trade unions are also angry at a police decision not to prosecute Sinn Fein politicians who attended the funeral of a former Irish Republican army commander in June. Bobby Storey’s funeral attracted a large crowd, despite the rules of the coronavirus banning mass gatherings.
The main trade union parties have thanked the Northern Ireland Police Chief for the controversy, claiming he has lost the trust of their community.
Mark Lindsay, chairman of the Northern Ireland Police Federation, said the ‘political atmosphere’ was being used as an excuse for violence, orchestrated by banned paramilitary groups.
“Parent, sinister elements use the youth and use children … to achieve their goals,” Lindsay told BBC radio.