When David Cameron called his Brexit referendum, the potential difficulty of Northern Ireland was not uppermost in his mind. Nor does it seem to have worried Theresa May greatly when she announced a snap general election this week. Even before this fresh electoral battle, Northern Ireland’s politics were already — to paraphrase Sean O’Casey — in ‘a terrible state of chassis’. Perhaps May thought the existing chassis in Belfast couldn’t get any worse. On reflection, I’m not so sure.
The last Assembly election in March left the DUP and Sinn Fein, the two tribal behemoths, delicately balanced on 28 and 27 seats respectively. Unionists lost their overall majority. Six weeks later, the parties have yet to reach an agreement on forming a government. Dust is gathering on numerous in-trays, and urgent decisions are dangling in mid-air.
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David Butterfield
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When the Stormont government is active, it is an extraordinary contraption, whose departments effectively operate as independent party fiefdoms.
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