Stormont deadline: NI politicians argue as election deadline loomson October 27, 2022 at 12:34 pm

Northern Ireland’s politicians have until midnight to restore the power-sharing executive – or face new elections.

The executive is made up of ministers from the largest parties, and is designed to ensure unionists and nationalists govern together.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is stopping its formation in protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol.

If it is not restored, the NI secretary has said he will call an election.

Sinn Féin and the Alliance Party have backed a motion to bring back assembly members from midday for a special sitting and are calling on the DUP to support the election of an assembly Speaker and stop blocking the formation of an executive.

A political vacuum looms, with no indication the political deadlock will be broken before Friday’s 00:01 BST deadline – 24 weeks since May’s election.

Under the law, if the deadline is missed, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris must hold an assembly election within 12 weeks.

Caretaker ministers at Stormont will be removed from office and senior civil servants will be in charge.

The assembly – which has been meeting only for special recalls since the election – would also be dissolved.

A pre-Christmas election, if called, will partly fill the void, but there is a risk it could make things worse rather than better.

Positions could harden during an election campaign and, if there was a very low turnout, the validity of the result could be questioned.

Mr Heaton-Harris, who has been in office since 6 September, has consistently said in recent weeks he will call the election, rather than try to delay it or avoid it with fresh legislation at Westminster.

The most likely date for a poll is 15 December.

A decision on this could come quickly, perhaps as soon as Friday.

The rules state that the Northern Ireland secretary must call an election “as soon as is practicable”.

That does not mean he must call an election on 28 October, contrary to what he has repeatedly said.

The rules do say the election must be held within 12 weeks, which would mean the second assembly election in the space of a year.

However, previous deadlines in Northern Ireland have been adjusted by emergency legislation at Westminster.

As the DUP has indicated it will continue its protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol post-election, the reason why the party has blocked the executive’s formation, the election is unlikely in itself to break the stalemate.

If this happened, there could be further cycles of negotiations, up to 24 weeks, and future elections, until a resolution is found or the law is changed.

Read more: Q&A: Is Northern Ireland going back to the polls?

Are you a Northern Ireland business owner being impacted by the political limbo? How would an election affect you? Share your experiences.

Ministers have been in post, but with only limited powers, since the DUP withdrew from the executive in February.

This is because the DUP, which is the largest unionist party at Stormont, has also blocked the election of an assembly Speaker as part of its anti-protocol protests.

The protocol is the trading arrangement, negotiated during the Brexit talks, which means goods coming into Northern Ireland from Great Britain are subject to checks.

On Thursday, former DUP leader and First Minister Peter Robinson urged his party not to return to the executive.

“To my colleagues in the DUP — continue to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

“You haven’t come this far to only come this far.”

The recall of the assembly is likely to offer the parties an opportunity to outline their competing positions on the current stalemate.

In theory, they are due to discuss a motion on the cost-of-living crisis, but the likelihood is that procedural rules mean it will not be debated.

In a letter to assembly members, Speaker Alex Maskey told them: “If the assembly is unable to elect a Speaker and deputy Speakers, it cannot proceed to do any of the other business including the appointment of ministers and the debate on the motion.”

A poll conducted by Queen’s University and LucidTalk suggests a majority of people in Northern Ireland want an executive to be formed.

Just under two-thirds (65%) agreed with the statement that the Northern Ireland Executive should be ‘fully functioning regardless of what happens on the Protocol while almost a third (32%) disagreed.

The latest poll was based on weighted sample of 1,499 responses to a survey undertaken on 7-10 October 2022. The margin of error is +/-2.3%.

The DUP – as well as the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) – say that the protocol is undermining Northern Ireland’s place in the UK and is contrary to the spirit of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the peace deal which set up power sharing in Northern Ireland.

It keeps Northern Ireland aligned with some EU trade rules to ensure goods can move freely across the Irish land border, from the UK into an EU member state, the Republic of Ireland.

It created a new trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, something the EU has accepted is causing difficulties for many businesses.

In May’s assembly election, Sinn Féin became the first nationalist party to win the most number of seats at Stormont. The DUP came second, with the Alliance Party returning with the third largest number of seats.

If the executive does not return, Sinn Féin vice-president Michelle O’Neill has called for a “joint approach” between London and Dublin.