Fresh bid to restore powersharing after Sinn Féin surge in NI local elections

Efforts will resume on Monday to restore the North’s powersharing government following a historic election victory which saw Sinn Féin become the largest party in local government.

Sinn Féin gained 39 seats to return 144 councillors, overtaking the DUP which remained static on 122 seats – the first time in Northern Ireland’s history a nationalist party has held the greatest number of seats at council levels.

In the wake of her party’s “momentous” election result, the Sinn Féin vice-president and the North’s first minister designate, Michelle O’Neill, called on Sunday for a “plan on the table” from the Irish and British governments to restore the Assembly and Executive without any further delay.

“I am now calling on both governments, as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement, the Irish government and the British government, to come together to establish a meeting of the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference to come up with a plan for the restoration of the Assembly,” Ms O’Neill told RTÉ.

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She said the continued political limbo was “not a tolerable situation, there shouldn’t be any more delays, and I want to see a plan on the table as to how we are going to get back around the table to make politics work and to have a locally-elected Assembly”.

There was a gang-up from other political parties and a media narrative which all laid the blame at the DUP’s door

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin is expected to travel North in the coming weeks for meetings aimed at re-establishing the Assembly and Executive.

Northern Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said he remains in “close contact with the parties and will continue to do everything I can to facilitate the restoration of the Executive.”

The head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service has written to the North’s party leaders requesting a meeting this week to discuss preparatory work towards the re-establishment of an Executive and highlighting the “extremely challenging” budgetary situation and the need for ministers to take decisions.

The DUP has been blocking the formation of an Assembly or Executive in Northern Ireland for more than a year as part of its protest against post-Brexit trading arrangements.

[ Scale of Sinn Féin’s NI election victory a stark reality check for unionism ]

The DUP Assembly member Jonathan Buckley said voters had backed the DUP “strongly” and the restoration of Stormont was the “number one issue on our campaign manifesto”, but it had to be on a “sustainable and long-term basis and that requires nationalist and unionist consent.”

Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, he criticised what he described as the “bullying attitude from the Secretary of State, a gang-up from other political parties and a media narrative which all laid the blame at the DUP’s door.”

Counting in the North’s council elections lasted two days and concluded in the early hours of yesterday morning, when the final seats were declared in Belfast City Council.

There shouldn’t be any more delays, and I want to see a plan on the table as to how we are going to get back around the table

The final breakdown largely mirrored the results of last year’s Assembly election, with Sinn Féin increasing its percentage share of first preference votes to 31 per cent, compared to the DUP on 23 per cent, Alliance on 13 per cent, UUP on 11 per cent and SDLP on 9 per cent.

Alliance repeated its success in that election, adding 14 seats to return 67 councillors, while the Ulster Unionist Party and SDLP lost 21 and 20 seats respectively, reducing their councillor numbers to 54 and 39.

Both party leaders dismissed any suggestion they would step down, and senior figures in both parties confirmed they had their backing.

The SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said “a lot of nationalists were “very angry, very fed up, wanting to send a message to the DUP to get back to work, and I think a lot of people felt the best way to do that was to vote for Sinn Féin”.

The former UUP leader Mike Nesbitt told BBC Radio Ulster it was time for a “fundamental realignment of unionism.”