Northern Ireland’s political crisis could cause Brexit problems

And so there we have it. Shortly after midday in Stormont, Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill declined to nominate a replacement for Martin McGuinness, causing the collapse of the power-sharing executive after five months shy of a decade.  At 5pm, authority to hold elections passes, under the Northern Ireland Act 1998, to Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire. By custom (though not law) these are held after six weeks. Sometimes the election you get isn’t the one you want. 

And Northern Ireland, which last went to the voters all of eight months ago, is now slouching towards snap election mode. Each party will bid for support from its ideological extremes: the Belfast Telegraph, under a headline ‘Polls Apart’, shows Arlene Foster in a Fermanagh Orange hall, and Máirtín Ó Muilleoir on the Falls Road at the Felons Club (where full membership is limited ‘to those who have been imprisoned or interned for their Irish Republican beliefs’).