Labour Party an 'honest broker' for NI - Louise Haigh

The Labour Party will always be an "honest broker" when it comes to Northern Ireland, the shadow secretary of state has said.

Louise Haigh was speaking at an event on Sunday in Brighton, as the party's annual conference got under way.

She also warned that Boris Johnson had "frayed the bonds" of the Good Friday Agreement with his Brexit deal.

Ms Haigh also gave a speech on the main stage of the Labour conference on Monday afternoon.

During it, she said the prime minister's "addiction to dishonesty is costing communities in Northern Ireland dear".

Ms Haigh accused Boris Johnston of "refusing to show leadership", saying it was "self-interest over national interest, every single time".

"This is a prime minister who has repeatedly placed his own political self-interest over the interests of Northern Ireland, who promised that he would never place barriers down the Irish sea, and then did it.

"Who signed an international treaty and then broke it. Who negotiated every single word in the NI Protocol and now blames everyone else for the consequences," she told the conference.

Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer pictured with Louise Haigh on the steps of Stormont during a visit to NI in July

Ms Haigh earlier warned that peace in Northern Ireland is "more fragile than we ever have known it".

"This reckless Tory Government has not only neglected the peace process, they have actively undermined it," she said.

"I don't say this lightly, Northern Ireland should not be a partisan issue."

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Speaking at the Sinn Féin fringe event on Sunday, Ms Haigh discussed threats by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to withdraw from power-sharing if its demands on the Northern Ireland Protocol were not met.

"There is real concern that if Stormont is brought down it will not be re-established," she said.

Ahead of the event, the DUP had criticised Labour over how Ms Haigh's title was described in the official conference programme for the Sinn Féin event.

It referred to her as the shadow secretary of state to the "north of Ireland".

'Lack of maturity'

It is understood Ms Haigh had not approved the wording, which was submitted by Sinn Féin prior to the debate.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told the Daily Telegraph it demonstrated a "lack of maturity" from Sinn Féin, which had been "overlooked" by Labour.

But in response Sinn Féin's Chris Hazzard accused the DUP leader of "desperation".

"I think it instead shines a light with what's going on in the DUP, when the focus should be on promoting a shared space," he said.

SDLP and Alliance also dismissed the criticism as a "non story".