NI Secretary’s election extension kicks political can down the road

Best get the diary out now.

Northern Ireland has a new deadline — more than one, in fact.

If the Assembly is not reformed by December 8th, then there must be an election within 12 weeks — at the latest March 2nd.

But there could also be a further six-week extension to that December deadline, which would replace it with January 19th and an election no later than April 13th — just in time for the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement, which many have long suspected to be the “real” deadline for the restoration of the Assembly.

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Almost two weeks after he pulled back from the brink of the Christmas election, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris set out his promised “next steps” on Wednesday.

As well as the schedule for the next few months, he also announced an intention to cut MLA salaries and legislation to ensure that in the absence of ministers the Northern Ireland civil service can continue to deal with things like the £650 million “budgetary black hole” in Stormont’s finances.

Not only will there be no election before Christmas, presumably neither will there be an election campaign over Christmas, nor indeed a poll in the mid-January cold

The pay cut at least will be popular; Heaton-Harris reflected this in his announcement, saying “people across Northern Ireland are frustrated that MLAs continue to draw a full salary whilst not performing all of the duties they were elected to do”.

So too is the news that not only will there be no election before Christmas, presumably neither will there be an election campaign over Christmas, nor indeed a poll in the mid-January cold.

The purpose of the delay, Heaton-Harris said, is to “create the time and space needed for talks [on the Northern Ireland protocol] between the UK and EU to develop and for the Northern Ireland parties to work together to restore the devolved institutions as soon as possible.”

That second outcome — restoration of the North’s powersharing government — is very much dependent on the first; this delay draws the focus away from the Stormont cliff edge and repositions that lens on the UK and EU negotiations.

Here, the signs are positive. Both Heaton-Harris and his colleague at the Northern Ireland Office, Steve Baker, emphasised their commitment to a negotiated solution in the Commons earlier on Wednesday, and this has been the longstanding preference of new UK prime minister Rishi Sunak; from the EU side, European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič said earlier this week he believed if there was political will it could be sorted out “within a couple of weeks”.

Sooner or later, a deal is coming; the decision then for the DUP will be whether to go back into Stormont or to continue to stay out, potentially indefinitely — which would surely only intensify the calls from the other parties for a reform of the Assembly structures.

Either way, agreement in the negotiations would at least disrupt this ever-lengthening period of Stormont stasis and, potentially, end the deadlock there.

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Yet, for all the relief that a winter election has been avoided, the reality remains that things are no further on.

Though all are agreed that an election at this point would have cost much and achieved nothing, Heaton-Harris’s “short, straightforward” extension has in effect kicked the Stormont can down the road.

While in theory there is a looming deadline for the restoration of the Executive by December 8th — presumably to keep up the pressure in the event of a swift EU-UK breakthrough — nobody in Northern Ireland, and certainly not the politicians, are likely to believe Heaton-Harris will follow through on this, especially when he has his back-up deadline already in place for January.

His U-turn last month — when he failed to call an election despite having repeatedly said he would do so — has damaged his credibility and begs the question, why anyone should believe he will follow through on these new deadlines.

He is clearly aware there is work to be done in this respect. Whereas the Northern parties learned of that earlier decision through the media, on Wednesday morning he briefed them first, before announcing his plans in the Commons — a sign he is making efforts to repair relationships.

Deadlines in Northern Ireland — as the Northern Ireland Secretary has learned to his cost — are flexible; the fear will be that this latest extension will simply allow things to drift further

The deep frustration felt at that previous failure to notify them in advance has been conveyed to the Northern Ireland Secretary. And it is understood the Sinn Féin vice-president and first minister-designate, Michelle O’Neill, has raised and discussed this with him.

In her response to Heaton-Harris’s announcement on Wednesday, the “fundamental question”, she said, “has to be around what’s next”.

With more than two months to go before the Northern parties will feel themselves again at the business end of this latest deadline of January 19th, the North remains without a devolved government, without ministers, and facing a challenging winter.

Deadlines in Northern Ireland — as the Northern Ireland Secretary has learned to his cost — are flexible; the fear will be that this latest extension will simply allow things to drift further.