NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY BACK IN SESSION AFTER TWO-YEAR BOYCOTT
▶ Deal on post-Brexit trade rules brings unionist DUP back to Stormont, writes Gillian Duncan
Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government returned to work after a two-year impasse on Saturday, with Michelle O’Neill making history as its first ever Irish republican leader.
Ms O’Neill took office as First Minister after the unionist camp agreed to end a twoyear boycott of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Unionist Emma Little-Pengelly becomes Deputy First Minister.
The two roles are functionally equal, but the Catholic Ms O’Neill’s appointment marks a symbolic moment in the history of Northern Ireland, where pro-union Protestants once held a monopoly on power.
“That such a day would ever come would have been unimaginable to my parents and grandparents’ generation,” Ms O’Neill said as she vowed to be a “first minister for all”.
“To all of you who are British and unionist: your national identity, culture and traditions are important to me,” she said. “Our allegiances are equally legitimate. Let’s walk this two-way street and meet one another halfway.”
Ms O’Neill’s nationalist Sinn Fein party topped the poll for the first time in a 2022 election, but the assembly is only now convening after the Democratic Unionist Party agreed to resume co-operation.
There have been several such gaps since the power-sharing regime was set up under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Last week, the British government struck a deal with the DUP on post-Brexit trade rules, a prime grievance for the unionists, to allow Northern Ireland’s institutions to resume work.
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson vowed to hold Westminster’s “feet to the fire” on the deal, which, he admitted, he does not fully trust.
Ms Little-Pengelly called on politicians to be a “source of hope” by working together on everyday issues, even though she and Ms O’Neill “will never agree” on Northern Ireland’s constitutional future.
“Despite our often troubled history and divisions of the past, I know that we have incredible potential,” she said.
Power-sharing has been mandatory among all political parties in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, ending a decades-long period of political and sectarian violence known as The Troubles.
Under the terms of the agreement, the government must include representatives from parties that want Northern Ireland to join the Republic of Ireland, known as nationalists, and those who want to remain part of the UK, known as unionists.
Under the system, the most important roles at Stormont must be held by both parties, so the first minister and deputy first minister are from different parties, but both hold equal power.
If one of them resigns, the other is also required to, as was the case in February 2022, when Paul Givan of the DUP resigned as first minister, forcing Sinn Fein’s Ms O’Neill to also step down.
Mr Givan’s resignation in 2022 was a result of a dispute over the Northern Ireland Protocol. He stepped down in protest against checks on British goods in the Irish Sea as a result of Brexit.
The agreement moved many of the EU checks that should have taken place at the land border with Ireland, an EU member, to the Irish Sea.
That effectively keeps Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market and customs union – meaning that goods coming in from elsewhere in the UK are treated as if they are from a foreign country.
This was unacceptable to the DUP, which argued it undermined Northern Ireland’s place in the UK. After Mr Givan’s resignation, Mr Donaldson said he had warned the British government that the DUP would quit the Executive if Westminster did not eliminate the checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea.
Last week, an agreement was reached to address the DUP’s concerns.
Last year, the UK and EU agreed on the Windsor Framework, which preserves what experts call Northern Ireland’s unconditional and unfettered access to Britain, their most important market, while maintaining access to the entire EU market.
At the core of the deal was the creation of a new system for the flow of goods. Anything destined for Northern Ireland was to travel there as part of a “green lane”, with fewer checks. Anything that could cross the border and enter the EU’s single market was to travel through a separate red lane.
The latest agreement commits to replacing the Windsor Framework’s green lane process at Northern Ireland ports, which requires goods to be checked as they arrive from Britain, with a “UK internal market system” that will govern the movement of goods that remain within the UK.
While Mr Donaldson has secured most of his party colleagues’ backing to accept the deal, there are those within the DUP who remain sceptical.
“There is undoubtedly a trust issue here,” Mr Donaldson told BBC Radio Ulster on Friday.
“I will hold the government’s feet to the fire, there are new mechanisms. I’m not just relying on the UK government.”
Mr Donaldson was given a significant boost on Friday when a high-profile Orange Order chief declared support for the deal.
Grand secretary of the Orange Order Mervyn Gibson, writing in The Belfast Telegraph, said while the deal was not perfect, it was a “win for unionist determination and unity, and needs to be accepted as such”.
Last week Westminster struck a deal with the DUP on post-Brexit trade rules, a prime grievance for the unionists