The Democratic Unionist Party has failed to join other parties in forming a new executive in Northern Ireland.
Under the law, Northern Ireland’s political parties had 24 weeks following an election to form a new executive. That 24 week period ended at midnight last night.
The secretary of state for Northern Ireland is now required to call fresh elections within 12 weeks, and he has suggested that he will now do so at the earliest opportunity. December 15 has been suggested as the most likely date for these election.
With the Northern Ireland Executive involving a joint leadership team between the first minister of the largest party (Sinn Fein), and a deputy first minister from the second party (the DUP), the nomination from the DUP is required in order to form the executive.
The DUP’s refusal to participate in the executive is part of the party’s protest against the Northern Ireland protocol, whereby goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK are subject to checks as part of the current Brexit trade agreement.
Defending his party’s decision, the DUP Leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told the BBC Radio 4′ ‘Today’ programme this morning that, “People in Northern Ireland are being treated as second class. We are having to pay far more for our food and other products, because the cost of bringing goods from one part of the United Kingdom to another has been driven up by the protocol. And I am simply saying we need to find a solution. My party stands to ready to play its part. We will form an executive as soon as that solution is found”.
Continuing Sir Jeffrey said, “We only ask that our mandate is respected, and what was that mandate: We went to the people, in May this year, and we made absolutely clear that we could not all conscious nominate ministers in s to an executive that is required to Implement a protocol that harms our economy and harms our people”.
In response to the prospect of fresh electiont, the leader of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill has said, “The public shouldn’t have to go to the polls again, but it looks like that is where we are heading, because the DUP continue to punish people and to stay out of an executive”.
Going on Ms O’Neill criticised the idea of direct rule from London in the event that the executive continued not to be formed, saying, “There is very much a role for joint partnership between London and Dublin in the event of things not being up and running”.
Commenting on the prospect of a further election, the leader of Northern Ireland’s third largest party, the Alliance Party, said that a further election was ‘the last thing that people in Northern Ireland wanted’.
