'Good case' for reviewing Good Friday Agreement, says Tony Blair amid Stormont deadlock

Former prime minister Tony Blair speaks to ITV News' Julie Etchingham ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement

Sir Tony Blair has told ITV News there is a "good case" for reviewing the Good Friday Agreement to stop parties' in Northern Ireland from being able to collapse the Assembly.

Speaking ahead of the 25th anniversary of the historic deal, the former prime minister admitted "people are right to ask" why any one party can "have a veto" over the system.

"There is a good case for reviewing it," he said, but added that "all parties" need to be on board for that to be successful.

Northern Ireland has been in its most recent state of political deadlock since February 2022, when the Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) first minister pulled out of Stormont.

Northern Ireland has now been without a power-sharing executive for more than a year, returning in 2020 after an impasse that lasted for three years.

There had been fresh hope that power-sharing could be restored in the wake of Rishi Sunak's Brexit deal, the Windsor Framework, but the DUP's rejection of the reformed protocol cast doubt over the chances of that happening anytime soon.

'The most successful peace accord of the last quarter of a century'

Mr Blair said: "I hope they think on balance, given the vote now in UK parliament, it's the right thing to proceed and to be in the situation where that stability that is so crucial in Northern Ireland can remain."

One of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement, set up to create a power-sharing assembly in Northern Ireland, Mr Blair admitted that there is a case for reviewing its terms when considering the continued deadlock in Stormont over recent years.

However, on the Good Friday Agreement, Mr Blair also said: "In a world where people are very cynical about politics, this is at least one thing you can be not cynical about."

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