James Brokenshire is out of his depth as Northern Ireland Secretary

There is a saying that whoever the Prime Minister hates, they appoint as Northern Ireland Secretary. James Brokenshire, Theresa May’s unlucky pick for the job, had three options yesterday: a new election, direct rule, or a fudge. When the clock struck 4pm, three weeks after Northern Ireland’s election, there was only one option: it was always going to be the Irish fudge. 

James Brokenshire had tried valiantly to maintain the fiction, which no one believed, that at 4:01pm yesterday he was prepared to fire the starting pistol of Northern Ireland’s third assembly election in a year. It wasn’t a credible threat, and people in Northern Ireland have a way of telling the one from the other. The problem was that everyone already knew the Law Lords had issued a decision in 2001 making the three weeks something of an Irish mile. In short, this meant that three weeks can mean six weeks – making Brokenshire’s earlier threat an empty one from the outset.