British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with his Irish counterpart Simon Harris in Dublin, according to Euronews.
This is the British leader’s first trip to Ireland in five years.
Today is really significant because we have made clear our ambition to reset the relationship and today we take that forward. We are clear that by March we want to have a summit to show the yield from this and then annual summits after that.
Relations between the two countries became strained since the UK voted to leave the European Union in 2016. This affected the political structures of Northern Ireland, part of the UK.
When the UK left the bloc, the British government and the EU agreed not to allow customs checkpoints and other checks on the Irish border, as an open border was a key element of the peace process that ended 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.
Starmer argued that the reset in relations should cover the 1998 Good Friday agreement that ended the conflict known as the Troubles.
I take very seriously our joint role in relation to that. And I’ve been very clear about that for many, many years and renew that commitment here today.
He said that the UK would not seek EU membership under his leadership, nor would it seek a frictionless single market and customs union.
We are also resetting our relationship with the EU and I have made it very clear that I want a closer relationship with the EU. That is of course on security, on defence, but also on trade, reducing the friction and any business here in Ireland will tell you that reducing the friction helps and so we want to reset that relationship.
Starmer and Harris took part in a business roundtable in Dublin to explore how “reset” relationships could benefit trade.
