Northern Ireland is to hold a fresh assembly election after a key deadline of Friday October 28 for the restoration of power sharing was missed.
The secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Chris Heaton-Harris, is now expected to meet with local politicians on Tuesday (November 1) with a firm date for a new election yet to be set.
Northern Ireland did hold an assembly election back in May, but the country has not been able to form a devolved power sharing administration after the Democratic Unionist Party [DUP] refused to enter government as an act of protest over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The Protocol is the mechanism within the UK’s Brexit deal with the EU which avoids goods checks across the land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the latter of which is within the bloc.
However, this development means that a customs border has effectively been created in the Irish Sea, leading to checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain. Unionists have objected to this, given the extra administrative burden placed upon Northern Irish businesses and their belief that it undermines Northern Ireland’s place in the UK.
The DUP has been pushing for solutions to the Protocol since February, and since May's election it has refused to enter government with Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein until the Protocol is addressed.
Sinn Fein MLA Conor Murphy has said that the DUP is culpable of thrusting Northern Ireland into a “political limbo” with its actions, and that the UK government had “extended” this issue.
Murphy suggested that the lack of a firm date for a new election was indicative of the “general degree of chaos” within the Conservative Party, with the UK having seen three prime ministers occupy 10 Downing Street in 2022 so far.
Murphy told the BBC: “We have been collateral damage from that, and I suppose the irony is that the DUP are holding out and preventing us from forming an assembly and an executive on the basis that they will have some influence over the Conservatives.
“You can see very clearly, with the chaos that is going on, that that strategy isn't working and that the only people that are suffering as a consequence of that strategy are the people that we collectively represent.
“So, we are no clearer today, than we were on Friday as what the secretary of state intends to do.”
However, the DUP’s Gordon Lyons has separately suggested that the focus should be on addressing the obvious issue of the Protocol and not on a new election.
Lyons said: “It has been well rehearsed, we know what they are (the Protocol issues) – they (the UK government) need to spend the time negotiating with the EU to get them resolved, or failing that, putting the Protocol Bill through Parliament.”
The UK government will bring its Northern Ireland Protocol Bill – a piece of draft legislation that will give ministers the power to unilaterally override parts of the Protocol – back to Parliament on Monday for scrutiny.
The Bill is controversial because the EU believes it contravenes international law, while the UK believes it does not and can be justified on the grounds of necessity. It is continuing to pass through Parliament while the UK government continues to pursue a negotiated solution with the EU.
Lyons added: “We need to get this sorted, we want to see this resolved to make sure we are in a position to get an assembly and an executive in place, but there can't be a solid basis for an executive or an assembly, until the Protocol is replaced with arrangements that restore Northern Ireland's place in the UK internal market and see our constitutional arrangements respected.
“I think this is all a bit of a distraction from the real work that actually needs to be done - that's where the focus of the Northern Ireland Office should be.”
The DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, has also been vocal in sharing his view that the UK government should prioritise negotiating with the bloc rather than setting the parameters for a fresh poll in Northern Ireland.
While negotiations continue, other parties in Northern Ireland have pressed the DUP to return to government to enable public services to function and address the cost-of-living crisis in the region. However, the DUP is standing firm.
The Republic of Ireland’s taoiseach (prime minister) Micheál Martin has labelled the system of governance in Northern Ireland as unfit for purpose given that local parties have been unable to restore the executive.
Martin told the Financial Times that the system could be reformed to ensure that the largest parties in the nationalist and unionist communities aren't required to govern together, which more fairly reflects the "healthy spread" of other parties in the country.
Martin was clear however that the rules of mandatory unionist and nationalist collaboration must be maintained, as per the Good Friday Agreement.
Image by Robert Paul Young on Flickr, taken from Wikimedia Commons
