Northern Ireland set for fresh elections as DUP refuses to restart power-sharing government

Northern Ireland was heading for its second election in a year today as the Democratic Unionist Party refused to rejoin the power-sharing government with Sinn Fein. 

Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson confirmed that the unionist party would continue its Stormont boycott in a protest over the Brexit deal between the UK and EU.

The DUP wants action is taken to remove the Northern Ireland protocol’s economic barriers on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

But talks between London and Brussels have been bogged down for months and previous attempts to get the executive running in May and in August also failed.   

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris gave local politicians until tomorrow to restart the government. 

But speaking this morning Sir Jeffrey s confirmed his party will not support the reformation of the Stormont Assembly.

He led his MLAs to the Great Hall in Stormont where he said they would take their seats in the chamber for today’s recall but not nominate ministers.

‘We do not believe that sufficient progress has been made to addressing the issues of concern to the people that we represent,’ he said.

Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson confirmed that the unionist party would continue its Stormont boycott in a protest over the Brexit deal between the UK and EU.

Sinn Fein Stormont leader Michelle O’Neill – who would become First Minister of any new assembly under current numbers, told MLAs that Sir Jeffrey had ‘left us all at the mercy of a heartless and dysfunctional Tory government’.

‘We were given a clear mandate in the Assembly elections, and we would not nominate ministers to an executive until decisive action is taken on the protocol to remove the barriers to trade within our own country and to restore our place within the United Kingdom internal market.

‘That remains our position and so today we will not be supporting the nomination of ministers to the executive.’

During the Stormont recall, MLAs are set to debate a motion, tabled by Sinn Fein in consultation with the Alliance Party, that will focus on the cost-of-living crisis, the instability at Westminster and the absence of devolved government at Stormont.

The sitting will see an attempt to elect a new speaker – a prerequisite before an executive can be appointed – but that bid is set to fail as the DUP will use its veto to block it.

The first failed attempt to elect a new speaker came in May following the election.

The Assembly has been recalled on two further occasions since, most recently in August.

A six-month legislative timeframe to form an administration expires just after midnight early on Friday.

If no ministerial executive is in place by then, the UK Government assumes a legal responsibility to call another election.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has repeatedly warned that he will call a Stormont poll if Friday’s deadline passes without a devolved executive being formed.

Mr Heaton-Harris met Northern Ireland political party leaders on Wednesday and reiterated the importance of restoring the executive.

Sinn Fein Stormont leader Michelle O’Neill – who would become First Minister of any new assembly under current numbers, told MLAs that Sir Jeffrey had ‘left us all at the mercy of a heartless and dysfunctional Tory government’.

Ms O’Neill also accused the DUP of being in a ‘perpetual stand-off with the public, the majority of whom they do not speak for, or indeed represent’.

‘Jeffrey Donaldson and the DUP have left us all at the mercy of a heartless and dysfunctional Tory government, whose own survival is all that counts,’ she said.

Ms O’Neill claimed those watching today’s proceedings in the Northern Ireland Assembly will be ‘bewildered’.

‘Most of us here want to do the job we were elected to do,’ she said.

‘Today our caretaker ministers rally to take decisions, within tight limits, before their civil servants are left in an impossible position come midnight where they are expected to run our essential public services yet have no budget and no powers.’