Northern Ireland to Hold Snap Election After Deadline Passes to Form Executive

Undated photo of Parliament Buildings, often referred to as Stormont, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. Paul Faith/PA

Northern Ireland is set to hold a snap election, months after the last assembly election, after the deadline passed to form a functioning parliament and a government.

It comes after a last-ditch effort to restore the Northern Ireland Assembly and to produce a Northern Ireland Executive failed on Thursday owning to the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) refusal to participate.

Chris Heaton-Harris, the UK central government’s Northern Ireland secretary, confirmed on Friday that he is “going to be calling an election.”

Heaton-Harris was widely expected to set a date for the election on Friday, but instead, he told reporters in Belfast that he will talk to Northern Ireland’s party leaders next week, adding, “But I will be calling an election” because ”I am legally bound to do so.”

The minister said he is “deeply disappointed” about the political impasse.

It’s unclear whether the institutions can be restored after a new election, as the DUP has vowed to block their formation until the UK government takes “decisive action” to remove trade barriers between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

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Under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of sectarian fighting among Irish nationalists and pro-UK unionists, the legislative and executive power in Northern Ireland must be shared between the largest unionist party, DUP, and the largest republican party, Sinn Féin.

The executive stopped fully functioning in February after then-First Minister, DUP’s Paul Givan resigned in protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol, which automatically triggers the removal of Sinn Féin’s Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill.

Northern Ireland First Minister Paul Givan speaking to the media at the ICC in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Dec. 15, 2021. Brian Lawless/PA

Following an assembly election on May 5, in which Sinn Féin surpassed the DUP to become the largest party in the assembly for the first time, the DUP refused to participate in forming a new executive or nominating an assembly speaker unless the UK government deals with the Protocol.

The assembly cannot carry out its function until a speaker is elected. Following a legislative change earlier this year, executive ministers, who were previously allowed to stay in post for two weeks after an election, can now remain for 24 weeks before a new election has to be called.

The deadline passed on Thursday night.

Northern Ireland Protocol

The Northern Ireland Protocol, part of the UK’s Brexit deal, left Northern Ireland in the E.U.’s single market to avoid a hard border between the region and the Republic of Ireland. But it has effectively put a trade border in the Irish Sea, separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson blamed the UK government for the collapse of the executive, telling BBC Radio Ulster on Friday that Westminster could have further extended the deadline.

“I think the government would be within its rights to say given that those six months have elapsed and progress hasn’t been made that we need a further period to sort this out, get a solution on the protocol that restores Northern Ireland’s place within the UK internal market and that will see the institutions restored immediately,” he told BBC Radio Ulster.

He also said the protocol is harming Northern Ireland’s ability to access medicines and equipment, contending that recently caused a three-week wait for life-saving cardiac surgery in a Belfast hospital.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s “Today” Programme, Donaldson said the DUP “stands ready to play its part” and “will form an executive as soon as that solution is found.”

Asked if the Northern Ireland Protocol is resolved, would the DUP be in an executive with Sinn Féin, Donaldson said: “Yes, I have said just as we respect the mandates that other parties have been giving, we only ask that our mandate is respected.”

Undated file photo of DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. Liam McBurney/PA

Sinn Féin lawmaker Conor Murphy said the DUP’s tactic is “clearly not working.”

“The chaos and the infighting that is going on within the Tory government means their focus is entirely on themselves, and if there is a negotiation with the E.U., that will take place because the British government want[s] it to take place not because the DUP are punishing the people of the north by preventing them having their own institutions,” he told BBC Radio Ulster.

“The DUP action is harming only the people that they represent and we all collectively represent and is serving no purpose other than to do that.”

Murphy said a new election will be “a verdict” on the DUP’s actions in the last nine months.

On his second day in office, the UK’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told his Irish counterpart Micheál Martin that his preference “remained a negotiated outcome,” according to a Downing Street spokeswoman.

A Northern Ireland Protocol Bill that aims to override parts of the protocol, brought forward by Liz Truss as one of her last acts as the foreign secretary, is currently being scrutinised in the House of Lords.