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Northern Ireland’s choice: Work together or face the voters

by editor

Northern Irish parties have one last attempt at restoring devolved government in Belfast — or they risk facing the wrath of voters at the polls.

The U.K. government has set out an 11th-hour deal aimed at resuscitating the assembly and executive at Stormont. Northern Irish parties have until Monday to get behind it, otherwise elections must be triggered by law.

Stormont has now been in the deep freeze for three years. Power-sharing talks aimed at restoring government have failed several times since they first collapsed in January 2017.

But this latest attempt feels different. The Conservatives now have a big majority in parliament and a proactive Northern Ireland secretary in Julian Smith. Meanwhile the Democratic Unionist Party, which propped up Theresa May’s government for two years, has lost all the clout it had at Westminster. And with a hard deadline on Monday, things have gone down to the wire.

“There’s a sort of world-weariness amongst the parties, a sense that they would almost be willing to accept anything,” according to Andrew McQuillan, who works for public affairs company Edelman and closely follows Northern Irish affairs.

The deal contains lots to tempt all sides, including investment from both the U.K. and Irish governments.

It helps that both main Northern Irish parties — the DUP, which supports the union with Great Britain, and Sinn Féin, which wants a united Ireland — stand to lose from a Stormont election. Both fared badly at the Westminster poll on December 12.

DUP leader Arlene Foster has already made positive noises, saying last night that the deal is “a basis upon which the assembly and executive can be re-established in a fair and balanced way.”

According to Mick Fealty, who edits the Slugger O’Toole blog about Northern Irish politics, “the DUP has been brought back down to earth. It has very few bargaining chips, so it really just has to get on with what it didn’t want.”

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald said her party would give the proposal “careful consideration,” and it is meeting to discuss the plan at 3 p.m. today. If both Sinn Féin and the DUP back the plan, Stormont could be restored as early as this afternoon.

NHS workers protesting outside Stormont today are making the point that after three years of no government, the health service is at point of collapse | Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

The deal contains lots to tempt all sides, including investment from both the U.K. and Irish governments. It also promises to give the parties what they want on Brexit: “unfettered access for Northern Ireland’s businesses to the whole of the U.K. internal market.”

But Northern Irish parties will be wary of being wooed by empty words. “Everybody knows the practical implications of the Brexit deal mean that that’s simply not going to be the case,” McQuillan said. It’s been made clear that Boris Johnson’s deal involves customs checks across the Irish Sea, with business in Northern Ireland — and possibly in Great Britain too — having to fill out forms when they export to the other side. A Treasury assessment leaked during the election campaign said this could be “highly disruptive” to the Northern Irish economy.

But Fealty doubts that these checks will be “the major block that people think” and argues most businesses trading across the Irish Sea are big firms that could be given so-called trusted trader status. “If this goes through — even in the extreme case — Northern Ireland could find itself as a very useful access point to the British market for the Irish Republic.”

Meanwhile, NHS workers protesting outside Stormont today are making the point that after three years of no government, the health service is at point of collapse. It could just be that for the good of both their province and their parties, Northern Irish politicians have little choice but to end the deadlock.

This insight is from POLITICO‘s Brexit Files newsletter, a daily afternoon digest of the best coverage and analysis of Britain’s decision to leave the EU available to Brexit Pro subscribers. To request a trial, email [email protected].

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