N Ireland orders halt to border checks in new Brexit glitch

LONDON (AP) — Northern Ireland’s agriculture minister on Wednesday ordered a halt to post-Brexit border checks at ports, another complication in a saga that has soured relations between the U.K. and the European Union.

Edwin Poots said he had received legal advice saying he could halt inspections of agri-food products coming from the rest of the U.K. that were imposed as part of Brexit divorce terms. He said he had ordered the checks to stop at midnight — though it was unclear whether civil servants would implement the instruction.

Poots represents the Democratic Unionist Party, which runs Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein. The DUP opposes the post-Brexit agreement known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, and has threatened to quit the Belfast government rather than implement it — a move that would collapse the power-sharing administration.

Other Northern Ireland parties condemned Poots' announcement.

Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Fein tweeted: “This stunt is an attempt by the DUP to unlawfully interfere with domestic and international law."

Alliance Party assembly member John Blair accused Poots of “behaving like a wrecking ball” and called for compromise.

Since Britain left the 27-nation bloc in 2020, relations have soured over Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that shares a land border with an EU member, Ireland. As part of the divorce deal, the two sides agreed to keep Northern Ireland inside the EU’s tariff-free single market for goods to maintain an open border on the island of Ireland — a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process.

That created a new customs border in the Irish Sea for goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. even though they are part of the...