Sinn Féin MP Chris Hazzard has described the plans by the British Government to open a new office in Belfast as a ‘power grab’ and an effort to ‘undermine the Good Friday Agreement and its institutions’.

The Sinn Féin Brexit spokesperson said:

“Plans by the Tory Government to open an office in Belfast to usurp Executive decision making is a power grab by an unelected and unaccountable body, and undermines the Good Friday Agreement and its elected institutions.

“The Executive and the Assembly are the only bodies with a mandate to make decisions for the people of the north, on housing, communities and local government.

“The British Tory party has no mandate in Ireland.

“This latest action is yet another example of the contempt this Tory government has for our peace agreement in Ireland and for the people who elected administrations in the north, in Scotland and in Wales.  

“It is the further outworking of a disastrous Tory Brexit, which has resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of pounds of EU funding for the north.

“Sinn Féin is calling for the British government to replace that lost funding by enabling the Executive to deal with the shortfalls for local people in a way which meets their needs. 

“Sinn Féin will continue to stand up for decision making to remain firmly in the hands of local people, and not by mandarins dispatched from Whitehall to operate in the interests of Boris Johnson and his Tory party rather than on the needs of the people we represent.”

ENDS/CRIOCH