It is time for a “great reset” in Ireland’s relationship with the UK, Taoiseach Simon Harris has said.
Speaking at the Government Buildings following Labour’s victory in the British general election, the Taoiseach said he would be speaking to the incoming Labour British prime minister Keir Starmer this morning to congratulate him on his “comprehensive victory”.
Describing the relationship between Ireland and the UK as “deeply consequential”, Harris said that the task at hand now was to “look forward.”
“It’s about realising the full potential of that relationship between the Taoiseach and the Prime Minister and between our governments,” he said.
“I know that Kier Starmer and I share a desire for it to go from strength to strength.”
He added: “It is time for a great reset.”
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne earlier, Harris said that “meaningful engagement” between the UK and Irish governments.
“When the UK was in the European Union, the Taoiseach and the British prime minister would have met several times a year by virtue of being at European meetings and other international fora,” he said.
“We need to make sure that we use the structures that are in place through the Good Friday Agreement to have real and meaningful engagement.”
Similarly, Tánaiste Micheál Martin congratulated the Labour Party on their “emphatic victory”, and said that there was now an opportunity to “reset British-Irish relationships”.
On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Martin said that the outgoing Conservative government failed to “embrace the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement”.
“It was okay terms of engagement and so forth, but not at the level that I would have previously experienced in different governments in terms of that sense of two governments co-anchoring the Good Friday Agreement and having a very strong relationship,” he said.
“That wasn’t the case over the last four years, it was quite inconsistent and I think Brexit had a particular impact on Northern Ireland and the British-Irish relationship in terms of trying to resolve the impact of Brexit on the Good Friday Agreement…it created tensions and strains which are still playing out in the election in Northern Ireland today.”
The UK’s opposition Labour Party secured a substantial parliamentary majority in the general election, ousting the incumbent Conservatives after 14 years of rule.
By this morning Labour had reached the threshold required to govern independently, with outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak admitting defeat and resigning as Conservative Party leader.
“We did it,” Keir Starmer told his Labour Party colleagues this morning.
“You campaigned for it, you fought for it — and now it has arrived…change begins now.”
Labour will achieve its second-largest majority since former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s 179-seat majority in 1997. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party plunged to its worst result ever since the party was founded 190 years ago in 1834.