Northern Ireland: Heaton-Harris will call Assembly election but date yet to be set

The Northern Secretary was accused of committing a “bizarre U-turn” after he failed to call a fresh Stormont election despite expectations he would announce the date for the poll on Friday.

The Sinn Féin vice president Michelle O’Neill said it was “more dysfunction” which reflected the “chaotic nature of the Tories” and had left people in Northern Ireland without clarity.

“People are left without an Assembly, an Executive, there is not even a caretaker minister in place and we have a situation tonight (Friday) where people just don’t know what is going to happen next,” she said.

The DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said the “chaos continues” and his party was “ready to fight” an election.

“The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) has been talking up some time the prospect of an election but evidently no decision has been taken,” he said.

Rather than “dithering” over an election, he said, the Northern Secretary and the UK government should focus on finding a solution to the problems around the Northern Ireland protocol.

The Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the restoration of the North’s power-sharing government must remain the “priority” and warned an election could lead to “further polarisation”.

“We should see can we take this opportunity to pause, to see whether we can get the institutions back, and in parallel with that have substantive negotiations between the UK government and the European Union.”

The SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said the Northern Secretary’s “failure to outline details of an Assembly election today should be the end of the idea” and what was needed was renewed negotiations to solve the outstanding issues around the protocol and the restoration of the North’s political institutions.

In a much-delayed statement on Friday afternoon, Chris Heaton-Harris told reporters outside NIO headquarters in Belfast that he would call an election and he would provide a further update next week.

The North’s Chief Electoral Officer, Virginia McVea, told the BBC on Friday she was still working towards an election date of December 15th.

Mr Heaton-Harris rejected the suggestion he had performed a U-turn on his pledge to call an election if the Northern Assembly was not restored by “one minute past midnight on Friday”, replying “nope” when asked if he was “starting to backslide.”

He told the media he had “limited options ahead of me, I’m under a legal duty to call an election within 12 weeks, I’ve had lots and lots of talks with all the parties and will continue to do so.

“I hear it when parties say they really do not want an election at all, but nearly of them are parties who signed up to the rules, to the law, that means I need to call an election.

“So you’ll hear more from me on that particular point next week.”

He also ruled out any question of joint authority in the continued absence of a power-sharing government in the North, saying “I want to address those who have talked about joint authority.

“It is something that we simply will not consider. It is not based on the consent mechanism that is threaded through the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement,” he said.

The British government has promised to call a fresh election to Northern Ireland's devolved parliament within the next 12 weeks.

In a statement issued later on Friday, Mr Heaton-Harris also said he was “considering my options to act on MLA pay” in the continued absence of an Assembly.

A last attempt to avoid an election and reform the Executive and Assembly failed on Thursday when the DUP again refused to nominate a Speaker, the pre-requisite for any other Assembly business.

The party has blocked the formation of a devolved government in Northern Ireland since the last election in May as part of its protest against the Northern Ireland protocol.

Its stance has been criticised by the other main parties in Northern Ireland, all of whom want a restored Executive and Assembly.

Mr Donaldson said on Friday there had been no change in his party’s position, saying he had been “very clear, and that is until we get decisive action to restore Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market and remove the rubble and debris of the protocol, we are not in a position and there is not a consensus for the restoration of the devolved institutions.”

Stormont ministers, who have been operating in shadow form since the Assembly collapsed earlier this year, also ceased to hold office at midnight.

Responsibility for running devolved departments will now pass to senior civil servants, although their powers are limited.

During a visit to Thurrock, in Essex, earlier on Friday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told reporters: “We do need to get the institutions in Northern Ireland back up and running and the sooner we can do that, the better.

“That requires our Government to get people around the negotiating table and to resolve the issues on the protocol.

“I think they can be resolved. I think there are amendments that can be made to the protocol without ripping it up.

“But the Government needs to get people around the table and get that agreement because at the moment we’ve got a very difficult situation for people in Northern Ireland who are suffering as a result of the government’s failure to convene this.”