Northern Ireland’s DUP resists pressure to end govt boycott

LONDON — Northern Ireland’s politicians got the message. Their statements were the latest in a drumbeat of messages pressing the Democratic Unionist Party to end a political crisis that is clouding 25th anniversary commemorations for the 1998 Good Friday peace accord that ended three decades of sectarian bloodshed known as “The Troubles.” The semi-autonomous Belfast government has been suspended since the DUP, which wants to keep Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom, walked out more than a year ago to protest a post-Brexit customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. The DUP boycott has left Northern Ireland’s 1.9 million people without a government to make key decisions as the cost of living soars and backlogs strain the creaking public health system. “We have to show that devolved government within the United Kingdom works for Northern Ireland.. We need to get the institutions up and running and keep them up and running,” the British prime minister said. Lawmaker Ian Paisley Jr. told Times Radio it was “moonshine” to suggest “that suddenly there’s going to be another El Dorado over the hill, if we just have an executive Northern Ireland.” Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson said the DUP would not be “browbeaten into submission” and the agreement was not enough to get the DUP to end its walkout.