The latest attempt to elect a new Speaker in Northern Ireland Assembly will take place on Wednesday, just a day before the legal deadline to restore devolved government. The Democratic Union Party caused the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly in early 2022 amid protests against post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland, preventing the assembly from sitting ever since. As a result, there has been little headway in moving towards restoring power-sharing institutions. On five previous attempts to bring the Assembly back, the DUP blocked any move to elect a speaker, an essential requirement for the Assembly to function.
According to Wednesday’s recall, Sinn Féin has supported the motion to bring the assembly back, which follows previous backing given by the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Alliance. This, in turn, relegates the DUP’s veto ambiguous, making it unlikely that any other assembly business can proceed. In the event that the assembly does not return, new elections will be called. Nonetheless, the various political parties in Northern Ireland say new legislation will be passed to extend the requirement, preventing an immediate return to the polls.
Wednesday’s recall comes against a backdrop of one major issue of public concern: the ongoing public sector pay disputes. While Sinn Féin’s motion supports the “demand for fair pay settlements for public sector workers”, the DUP has stated that Wednesday’s recall is futile since the party’s conditions for returning to power sharing “have not been secured”. The party’s finance spokesman, Gordon Lyons, argued that the calling of the Assembly at this time was merely grandstanding, insisting their attempts would achieve nothing.
The government’s repeated attempts at Plan A have failed, and its focus is likely to shift to Plan B. Previously, the DUP has been blocking the Assembly in protest against post-Brexit trade with Great Britain, claiming it compromises Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market. While a new deal, called the Windsor Framework, sought to address some of these concerns, the DUP claimed it was not far-reaching enough and has been in talks with the government ever since. While further talks have ended in failure, the government has offered £3.3bn to Northern Ireland if the Stormont institutions were restored, some of which would go towards resolving the ongoing pay disputes in the public sector
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