The UK’s Northern Ireland Secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, is set to hold a new series of bilateral talks with the Stormont parties on Monday to try to restore devolved government in the country. This comes after the UK government offered a £3.3bn financial package for Northern Ireland in December to revive the executive, but the talks ended without any resumption of Stormont power-sharing. Ahead of a mass strike on Thursday involving thousands of public sector workers, Mr. Heaton-Harris is under pressure to tackle the pay dispute in the absence of an executive, although he has argued that it is a matter for local ministers to address.
Northern Ireland’s devolved government collapsed in February 2022 after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) withdrew in protest against post-Brexit trade checks between the region and Great Britain. The DUP believes that the arrangements under the Northern Ireland Protocol diminish the region’s place within the UK’s internal market. A new deal called the Windsor Framework was agreed in 2023 between the UK government and the European Union aimed at addressing these concerns. However, the DUP said it did not go far enough, and for months, the party has been in talks with the government seeking further changes.
Last week, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that if the Stormont executive was restored, public sector pay disputes in Northern Ireland could be resolved “rapidly”, adding that “significant progress” had been made in talks with the DUP and there was “now a very good basis” to revive the power-sharing institutions. The industrial action coincides with a legal deadline for restoring Stormont power-sharing, and if no executive is formed by Thursday, Mr. Heaton-Harris falls under a legal duty to call an early assembly election. However, he has pushed back this deadline several times before and has indicated he may do so again
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