London (dpa) - Prime Minister Theresa May‘s plan to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union is a "hostile action" for the people of Northern Ireland, Irish republican party Sinn Fein said on Saturday."The British government‘s intention to take the North out of the EU, despite the wish of the people there to remain, is a hostile action," Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein‘s president, said in one of his strongest criticisms of Brexit.Brexit has "implications of a hard border on this island" and will have a "negative impact" on the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which underpins Northern Ireland‘s power-sharing principles, Adams said in speech in Dublin, the Irish capital.Sinn Fein says it fears the introduction of border controls between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit, despite May insisting that she would seek to maintain cross-border freedom of movement for goods and people.May‘s commitment to end the jurisdiction of the European Court and take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights also threaten to "undermine the fundamental human rights elements of the Good Friday Agreement," Adams said.Sinn Fein has advocated a "special status" for Northern Ireland in the EU after Brexit and has made Brexit a campaign issue for snap elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly on March 2.The United Kingdom, which includes Britain and Northern Ireland, voted by a majority of 52 per cent to leave the EU in the Brexit referendum on June 23. In Northern Ireland, 56 per cent of voters opted to remain in the EU.
