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The UK government ratcheted up pressure on Northern Ireland’s biggest unionist party on Tuesday by giving it a fortnight to end two years of political deadlock over Brexit and restore the region’s executive.
Chris Heaton-Harris, Northern Ireland secretary, had been expected to extend the time allowed to form a new power-sharing executive but analysts said his decision to set a new February 8 deadline was a shorter than expected timeframe to try to push the Democratic Unionist Party to lift its boycott.
Heaton-Harris maintained that “significant progress” had been made in months of talks with the DUP to allay its concerns over post-Brexit trading arrangements for the region. “I believe . . . the constrained timescales will be sufficient,” he said.
The new deadline will be set out on Wednesday in fast-track legislation to delay a legal requirement to call fresh regional elections after the previous deadline to restore the Stormont assembly and executive was missed last week.
The DUP triggered the collapse of the executive in February 2022 before beginning a full boycott of Stormont since the long-dominant party came second to the nationalist Sinn Féin in regional elections in May of the same year.
Northern Ireland is currently being run by civil servants in Belfast, who are struggling to stretch tight budgets set by London.
Heaton-Harris in December offered a £3.3bn package for the cash-strapped region — including some £600mn for public sector workers who staged a major strike last week — and said talks with the DUP on “all issues of substance” were over. The cash is only available when Stormont returns.
But Jon Tonge, a politics professor at the University of Liverpool, said there was a “distinct possibility” that the DUP would still agree to restore the paralysed political institutions by the new February deadline.
The DUP said: “The government knows our view that it is only when we have resolved the remaining outstanding issues that we will be able to bring about the necessary conditions for the return of devolved government.”
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said there had been progress to improve the deal and insisted contacts with London were continuing “to finalise the outstanding issues”. However, his party remains deeply split over returning to Stormont.
Tonge said the new deadline suggested London had no “Plan B” if Stormont remained on ice. In talks with party leaders, Heaton-Harris has floated the idea of giving the UK government extra powers to run the region but has ruled out London taking full control.
Transport workers have meanwhile called four more days of strike action, starting on February 1, following a mass walkout by some 170,000 public sector workers on January 18.
