Boris Johnson yet to make a phone call to Irish PM Leo Varadkar

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Four days after becoming prime minister, Boris Johnson has yet to make a phone call to his Irish counterpart. The Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, appears to have been pushed back in the queue with no arrangements yet in place for the conventional call that takes place when new leaders assume office in Ireland and the UK.

Johnson has already spoken to five leaders around the world including Donald Trump on Friday, who later revealed he talked about doing a trade deal “five times” the size of existing arrangements with the UK. Also on Friday, Johnson contacted the Canadian president, Justin Trudeau, to discuss a Brexit transition and in his first two days of office he spoke to Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Claude Juncker.

The lack of contact with the taoiseach will add to the existing strains in Anglo-Irish relations since Johnson assumed power, with new tensions over remarks on the risks to Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom. Varadkar said on Friday evening that “more and more people in Northern Ireland will come to question the union” if the UK crashed out of the EU, putting the region, which voted to remain, into a new historical chapter with the rest of the island of Ireland.

“People who you might describe as moderate nationalists, or moderate Catholics, who are more or less happy with the status quo, will look towards a united Ireland. And I think increasingly you see liberal Protestants and unionists who will start to ask where they feel more at home,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/27/boris-johnson-yet-to-make-a-phone-call-to-irish-pm-leo-varadkar