NI parties unnerved by realisation Heaton-Harris is not in command of his brief

Alongside the ladder the DUP needs to climb down over the protocol, the Northern Secretary now needs a ladder to climb down over an election.

Until two weeks ago, nobody believed Chris Heaton-Harris would arrange a Christmas poll once Stormont collapsed. The law might require it but the law can always be changed. Then it started to appear he was serious. The Northern Secretary gave forceful interviews setting out legal, practical and principled arguments to call an election, and insisting he would do so.

The best evidence Mr Heaton-Harris was serious is the farce that has ensued since a chaotic press statement last Friday when he failed to announce a polling date as promised. He clearly had no alternative plan.

Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, has offered the obvious explanation: new UK prime minister Rishi Sunak intervened at the last moment to put an election on hold.

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The best way to understand this bizarre episode is to realise that Mr Heaton-Harris was briefly alone at the controls, with little choice but to keep threatening an election. If he saw genuine value in a poll or thought ramping up the threat of one would bounce the DUP back to Stormont, as his statements suggested, there was nobody above to co-ordinate with – or to rein him in.

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A Northern Secretary would never take a big decision without direction from Downing Street, especially where the protocol is involved. However, there was in effect no prime minister the week Liz Truss resigned and no consensus on her successor. The following week was set aside for a leadership contest, with the winner to be announced last Friday, creating a vacuum in London right until the deadline to call an election.

In the event, Mr Sunak was appointed last Monday unopposed. He left Mr Heaton-Harris in post, seemingly endorsing the Northern Secretary’s approach to restoring Stormont. The media in Belfast declared it highly probable there would be a Christmas election and certain a date would be announced last Friday, even if that date might later be pushed back.

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From appearing to have a plan and the prime minister’s confidence, Mr Heaton-Harris’s authority is suddenly draining away. It is painfully apparent he was left in post for party management reasons, as a former chair of the European Research Group (ERG) of Brexiteers. The prime minister needs the ERG onside but is seeking his advice on Northern Ireland elsewhere.

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A Christmas election is now extremely unlikely and any trip to the polls will almost certainly be postponed for protocol talks. An election could be avoided altogether if there is a deal the DUP believes unionism can accept.

Mr Donaldson’s party might still want an election to capitalise on a deal, or to obtain a mandate covering its return to Stormont. But it has to consider council elections next May, when protocol talks are bound to have reached some kind of resolution and the DUP will be unable to stop unionist voters passing their verdict on it. The party’s ideal course is to get back to work beforehand and start projecting an air of success. That appears to be Mr Donaldson’s plan. Since last Friday’s fiasco, he has called on the UK government to focus on “the underlying problem” of obtaining a protocol deal. Gordon Lyons, the DUP’s former economy minister, described an election as a “distraction”.

This is where everyone thought matters stood and was happy to leave them before Mr Heaton-Harris talked the prospect of an election up. As he tries to back down, parties are unnerved by the realisation he is not in command of his brief and the government does not know what to do. The distraction of a snap poll still hangs in the air while neither London nor the Northern Ireland Office will rule it out. There is growing alarm in the DUP at how Downing Street’s revolving door is delaying protocol talks. Although technical discussions have plodded along, political negotiations have not even begun.

Mr Heaton-Harris has been meeting the Stormont parties this week to “discuss next steps” on an election and how to keep public services functioning in the absence of ministers. Party leaders have emerged saying they are none the wiser – they have accused Mr Heaton-Harris of arranging talks to cover his climbdown. That might be excusable if it had a purpose beyond marking time and saving face but there is no indication either he or Mr Sunak have decided where the bottom of this ladder leads. Will the law on elections be amended? Will there be hands-off ‘indirect rule’ from London, as in the last Stormont collapse?

It is absurd to have created yet another level of crisis in Northern Ireland because those supposedly in charge have no agreed answers, or even contingencies, to these questions.