In Northern Ireland, the political crisis intensified after a deadline for forming a government. The British government will now call a new election because the two main parties could not agree on a unity government in the allotted time. It will be the second vote in a year.
British Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said on Friday: "I am deeply disappointed with where we are." But he would have no choice but to hold a new election. He did not initially name a date, December 15 is a possible date.
But experts are convinced that the next vote will not bring a solution either. "It makes no difference whether people vote black, white, yellow or pink, it won't change anything," said former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who helped negotiate the 1998 Northern Ireland peace treaty. The former civil war province is threatened with a vicious circle. In the smallest part of the United Kingdom with a population of just over 1.9 million, the focus is on religion, demographics and the role between Great Britain and Ireland.
Sinn Fein received the most votes
The trigger for the stalemate is the refusal of the Protestant DUP party to enter a government with the Catholic Sinn Fein, which won the majority of the votes in May's election. Such bipartisan unity government is mandated by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended the civil war. Prior to this, Catholics, who advocate reunification with Ireland, and Protestants - mostly supporters of union with Britain - had been at odds for decades.
Almost 25 years after the peace agreement, the political fronts continue to run along denominational lines. The fact that more Catholics now live in the province, which was once dominated by Protestants, makes the situation even more difficult. Now unionists like the DUP fear demographics will encourage secession from Britain and union with Ireland.
As a condition for entering government, the DUP is demanding that special rules for Northern Ireland, which London and Brussels had agreed on in the wake of Brexit, be overturned. The regulation is intended to avoid a hard border with EU member Ireland. But it has also created a customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, with trade problems.
The DUP does not contest the fact that all other parties in Northern Ireland, but also the government of neighboring Ireland and now even the British central government are asking them to give in. Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson said it was the will of his voters to bury the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol.
Critics accuse the DUP of taking the province hostage. "Public budgets to support the population are frozen because the DUP is blocking local government," said Green MEP Anna Cavazzini, chair of the European Parliament's Internal Market Committee.
Dispute over Northern Ireland Protocol
To make matters worse, London would like to repeal the internationally binding Northern Ireland Protocol. The EU has also admitted that the regulation, which is intended to prevent circumvention of the EU customs border, has led to difficulties in everyday life. For example, some food can no longer be exported duty-free from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. But when it comes to a solution, the UK and the EU are still far apart. The fact that there is legislation in the British Parliament that would allow London to unilaterally terminate the agreement does not make things any better.
Some experts are already pointing to a last resort. Legally, Northern Ireland could be governed directly from London without forming a local executive. But such a step risks new tensions and possibly new violence: for the nationalists, this would amount to a hostile takeover.
