Mary Lou McDonald says her exclusion from protocol meeting was 'a bad decision'

Mary Lou McDonald rejected claims from the British government that there was an issue around the 'protocol' of meeting the Sinn Féin leader.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said she has written to the British prime minister following a decision to exclude her from a Brexit meeting with foreign secretary James Cleverly.

The party dramatically withdrew from roundtable talks with Mr Cleverly after claiming Ms McDonald was excluded from attending the talks on the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The SDLP also refused to attend the meeting following Ms McDonald's exclusion. 

The Belfast talks, which were also to include Britain's Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and focus on the Stormont powersharing crisis, were overshadowed by the row.

Ms McDonald, who is in Belfast on Thursday to meet Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and UK Labour leader Keir Starmer, rejected claims from the British government that there was an issue around the “protocol” of meeting the Sinn Féin leader.

“It was a bad move, it was a bad decision,” Ms McDonald said on Thursday morning.

“I’ve written to the British prime minister [Rishi Sunak] to air my concerns and I can only hope that lessons will be learned and we don’t have a repeat of this distraction politics which was most unhelpful.

“But we crack on today and we get some work done.

The whole basis of progress in the North is always on the basis of mutual respect, inclusion and recognising people’s electoral mandates. That’s how it works. All of us who work closely in this know that.

“I would have reacted exactly the same way had another leader of another political party been excluded. It’s not acceptable. It’s not the way we do business.”

Unionist representatives suggested it was a diplomatic issue that led to the snub, that Mr Cleverly could not meet Irish opposition leader Ms McDonald before his Irish counterpart.

The meeting was overshadowed by the dispute, after being convened to discuss how to resolve the stalemate over the protocol, a set of post-Brexit trade rules agreed by the EU and UK aimed at preventing a hard border on the island of Ireland.

The protocol has become a contentious political issue, with the DUP refusing to engage with the powersharing institutions until it is dramatically altered or removed.

But several recent developments have indicated a breakthrough may be possible, including a customs data-sharing agreement between the EU and UK, which has been hailed as a positive step.

The decision to exclude Ms McDonald from the talks was criticised by the Government, with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar saying it is not usual practice to tell other parties who should be on their delegation.

Mr Cleverly defended the decision, stating the meeting was to hear from political representatives in Northern Ireland and he would meet Irish politicians “in the near future”.

He insisted Sinn Féin was not excluded from a meeting with him in Belfast, saying the party vice-president Michelle O’Neill was invited to attend but opted not to.