The Northern Irish parties failed yesterday in their latest attempt to restore the government of shared power between nationalists and unionists due to their differences over the Brexit protocol, which leaves the British province on the brink of early elections.
The pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), second force, kept its word and refused to enter an autonomous executive with Republican Sinn Féin, winner, for the first time in its history, of the elections held last May .
The parties are now awaiting the announcement by the British Minister for Northern Ireland, Chris Heaton-Harris, who had warned that if there was no agreement by midnight yesterday he would be forced to make an appointment with the polls. which according to forecasts could be held on 15 December.
“There is still time” to avoid it, the new London head of government, Rishi Sunak said yesterday, just before the Belfast Assembly met again for the fourth time to elect, first, the Speaker of the House and then , the independent executive, suspended since last February.
unionist veto
However, the trade unionists’ veto prevented the election of the president and automatically suspended the nomination of candidates for the posts of Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, who correspond respectively to Sinn Féin and DUP, according to the results of the May elections.
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has insisted his party will not change positions until the Brexit protocol is “removed,” a tool, he said, that has damaged “our economy” and changed it. ” constitutional status “of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom” without our consent “.
Donaldson reiterated that his party “is ready” for the polls, for elections that, however, “will not change anything” until Brussels and London resolve the issue of protocol in their negotiations, Doug Beattie, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, added (UUP, fourth regional formation).
The third political force, the Liberal and Non-sectarian Party Alliance, also believed that elections “do not solve the crisis, but rather exacerbate it” and argued that London, on the other hand, should introduce “emergency legislation” to temporarily suspend Northern Irish government institutions, until the European Union and the UK reach an agreement “preferably within weeks”.
Its leader, Naomi Long, also recalled that it is necessary to reform the peace accords of Good Friday (1998), to prevent the unionist and nationalist blocs from exercising their right of veto and causing paralysis like the current one.
For her part, the vice president of Sinn Féin, Michelle O’Neill, accused Donaldson and the DUP of “living in constant confrontation with citizenship”, with “a majority they do not represent”.
“He ran for elections (in May) and now he’s showing no signs of life. This is a disaster and a leadership failure on the part of him and his party, ”stressed the Republican leader in the Northern Irish Assembly and candidate for the post of prime minister.
O’Neill also blamed Donaldson that his actions have left the province “at the mercy” of a “dysfunctional and ruthless” British government that “only cares about its own survival.”
