The effects of Brexit are increasingly being felt in Northern Ireland.

Victim of the tensions created by the exit from the European Union, the head of the local government, the unionist Arlene Foster announced Wednesday April 28 his resignation.

Targeted by a sling within her party, the DUP, she announced that she would step down at the end of May, then her post as head of local government at the end of June.

"Once he is elected, I will work with the new leader on the transitional arrangements," she said in a televised statement.

"The future of unionism and Northern Ireland cannot be found in division," she warned.

Sling after the introduction of customs controls

Arlene Foster, 50, a believer in her province's union with the British crown, returned to being Prime Minister of Northern Ireland in January 2020, having previously had to step down from her post, entangled in a scandal over the management of subsidies for renewable energies.

During the Brexit negotiations, the role of kingmaker of the DUP in the Parliament of London, where he assured a fragile majority in the government of Theresa May, had allowed him to influence the negotiations with Brussels, the party calling for a separation clear and crisp with the EU.

But after the landslide victory of Boris Johnson's conservatives in the 2019 legislative elections, which ended the role of the DUP, this lawyer by training was unable to prevent the establishment of customs controls between Northern Ireland and the island. from Great Britain.

This provision provided for by the Brexit agreement creates a customs border in the Irish Sea to prevent the return of a separation between the province and the Republic of Ireland, a member of the EU.

Deemed "timid" during a vote on conversion therapy for homosexuals

The postponement of most of the controls decided unilaterally by London did not prevent the anger of the Unionists, causing violent riots in early April. 

Drop of water fueling the sling against the head of the DUP: Arlene Foster's decision to abstain during the vote in April, by the local parliament, of a motion calling for a ban on conversion therapy for homosexuals, an attitude considered too timid by the most fundamentalists of her training, with an ultraconservative vision in terms of mores. 

With AFP

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