Johnson still hasn't seen fit to go to NI. Does he not realise he is PM there too, or is it only when votes matter?
It seems that Boris Johnson visited Northern Ireland on the 12th March - only two/three weeks before the rioting started (rioting prompted by the decision not to prosecute Sinn Fein politicians who attended the Storey funeral).
12 March 2021 -
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has held “frank” conversations with the DUP on the Northern Ireland Protocol as he visited the region. ...
[Arlene] Foster’s powersharing partner, Sinn Fein’s deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill, refused to welcome the premier to Belfast on Friday in her Stormont role after a request for a political meeting with her and Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald was not accepted.
I am assuming that a private meeting with Sinn Fein politicians would not have gone down well with the DUP?
www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/boris-johnson-foster-dup-brexit-extra-b923825.html
Press conference during the visit in March;
Boris Johnson has said the Northern Ireland Protocol is not operating in the way he envisaged.
The Prime Minister said he did not think arrangements he agreed with the EU would involve restrictions on the movements of food products such as sausages, on parcel deliveries and on soil from Great Britain entering Northern Ireland.
He said the protocol was operating in an imbalanced way and was causing irritation to the loyalist and unionist community in Northern Ireland as a consequence.
In a virtual press conference on a visit to the region, Mr Johnson said: “It needs to be corrected, you can’t have a situation in which soil or parcels or tractors with mud on their tyres or whatever are prevented from moving easily from one part of the UK to another – it’s all one United Kingdom.”
He said the protocol was an act of “good neighbourliness” by the UK towards Ireland and the EU to stop goods moving into the single market in an “uncontrolled way”.
During Brexit negotiations, debate centred on which products from Great Britain were at risk of continuing from Northern Ireland into the rest of the EU tariff-free.
The UK argued that goods like supermarket deliveries intended for Northern Ireland should be exempted from extra paperwork and declarations.
Mr Johnson said the protocol was necessitating more processes and checks than it should and that is why the Government moved to delay its implementation until longer term solutions are found with the EU. ...
Mr Johnson reiterated his warning that he would move to suspend elements of the protocol – by invoking Article 16 to the arrangements – if it proved impossible to resolve current issues.
Stormont First Minister Arlene Foster said everything coming into Northern Ireland from Great Britain was going through checks despite very few of those goods going on to the EU.
She told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “It is not a proportionate action to take, to check everything going through because so little goes on into the Republic of Ireland.”
www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/boris-johnson-prime-minister-government-great-britain-arlene-foster-b923894.html
Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary held talks in NI on the 8th April. Personally I don't think Boris Johnson needed to return to NI in person so soon after his last visit - no doubt he is in contact by phone/zoom.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/apr/08/northern-ireland-executive-holds-emergency-meeting-unrest-belfast
Meanwhile, back in the 1700s...
January 2013 -
Children's role in Belfast flag riots 'deeply worrying.'
Northern Ireland children's commissioner warns children in serious physical danger and could get criminal convictions.
Ten- and 11-year olds involved in the violent loyalist flag dispute are being put in serious physical danger, Northern Ireland's advocate for children's rights has warned.
www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/07/children-belfast-flag-riots