London is pushing back a deadline to hold elections in Northern Ireland in the hope that the UK and EU can resolve a row over post-Brexit trade rules before next Easter, the 25th anniversary of the region’s landmark peace deal.
Chris Heaton-Harris, UK secretary of state for Northern Ireland, acknowledged that this did not give long for London and Brussels to fix the thorny issues that have bedevilled bilateral relations since the trading arrangements were introduced almost two years ago.
But he told the Financial Times he had delayed his legal duty to call fresh elections in order to “clear some time and space for talks”.
He said he was “genuinely very positive” on prospects for a deal between the UK and EU being achieved by early next year, including on the sticking point of oversight of the post-Brexit trade arrangements by the European Court of Justice.
British prime minister Rishi Sunak and Micheál Martin, Ireland’s taoiseach, will hold talks on Thursday at a British-Irish Council meeting in Blackpool that Dublin hopes will help outline what concessions the UK could make to strike a deal.
“We all want to see power-sharing restored as soon as possible,” Sunak is expected to say on Thursday. “I’m determined to deliver that.”
Heaton-Harris had told the House of Commons he would introduce legislation in the coming weeks to provide a “short, straightforward extension” to the election deadline. Under current rules, an election had been due to take place by January 19.
The new timetable would, however, extended the deadline for parties to form an executive to December 8, or face an election by March 2. Heaton-Harris could then extend those deadlines further, giving parties until January 19 to return to Stormont or face an election by April 13. The minister said he did not expect to make additional extensions after that.
The Democratic Unionist party, the largest pro-UK force, has boycotted the Stormont executive and assembly since May, refusing to form a government until its demands for sweeping changes to the post-Brexit trade rules are met.
The DUP said the arrangements, known as the Northern Ireland protocol, undermine the region’s place within the UK.
However, the April 13 deadline date would clash with the quarter-century anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of conflict in Northern Ireland and established power-sharing as the basis for devolved government in the region.
US president Joe Biden is expected to visit for the anniversary, which falls on April 10, and American politicians are unenthusiastic about the prospect of polls overshadowing the occasion.
“I’d like to think all sides — and you will find I’m a glass half full person — understand the time pressure, want to get this sorted and will now work to that kind of timescale,” Heaton-Harris told the FT.
The protocol — which erected a customs border for goods crossing the Irish Sea from Britain to Northern Ireland — is yet to be implemented in full, because of grace periods.
Brussels has said it wants checks on goods entering the region in case they then cross the Irish border into the EU. But London has insisted this encroaches on its sovereignty and has angered Brussels by introducing draft legislation that would allow it to rip up parts of the trade deal unilaterally.
Heaton-Harris was upbeat that a protocol deal with Brussels would bring unionists onside.
“We have set out in the bill the sorts of things we want to see . . . let’s say all the stars aligned, which is a big if at this point in time. The UK government is absolutely clear it wants to protect and enhance the union. I would like to think all unionists would be happy with the result if there was a deal,” he said.
He added: “It all comes down to respect and trust. The European Commission completely understand the issues that the unionist community have with the protocol and do understand that the protocol, even in its partial implementation, has caused all sorts of issues with the flow of goods into Northern Ireland.”
Technical teams from London and Brussels have been meeting regularly and the mood has improved in recent months, but officials acknowledge that they remain far apart on key issues.
The protocol left Northern Ireland both inside the EU’s single market for goods and within the UK’s internal market. Britain wants to remove the European Court of Justice’s role in policing the protocol. Heaton-Harris said he believed that an agreement was feasible.
“We understand that one of the raisons d’être of the European Commission is to protect the European single market and it wants us to demonstrate that we can do that and I’m absolutely convinced we can.”
Heaton-Harris said he intended to cut legislators’ pay by 27.5 per cent, reflecting public frustration at them not performing their duties in full.
He also pledged to bring legislation within a month to pass a budget for Northern Ireland. The region has a near-£700mn overspend, which the secretary of state said would have to be plugged by altering allocations for next year.
