LONDON (AP) — Northern Ireland’s largest British unionist party has chosen a religious conservative from the party’s traditionalist wing as its new leader. Edwin Poots, currently Northern Ireland’s agriculture minister, won a two-person contest Friday to lead the Democratic Unionist Party. The party is the senior partner in Northern Ireland’s Catholic-Protestant power-sharing government. Poots was elected by the party’s lawmakers to replace Arlene Foster, who quit as leader and first minister last month amid recriminations over the impact of Brexit. Poots vowed to unite the unionist movement in the face of the “massive challenge” brought by Britain’s exit from the European Union. Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. to share a border with the 27-nation bloc.
