Proceedings start up and end quickly

THE first sitting of the new Assembly starkly showed how last week’s election has changed the power dynamics at Stormont.

Sinn Fein as the largest party sits to the Speaker’s right where the lead unionist grouping had sat for around two decades.

The DUP as secondlargest has swapped with Sinn Fein to now sit on the left-hand side.

Alliance is still in the middle of the horseshoe but its numbers have swelled.

It is encroaching near the so-called “naughty corner” where TUV leader Jim Allister still sits as his party’s lone voice.

Michelle O’neill told MLAS she stands ready to “take on the leadership of the Northern Ireland Executive as a First Minister for all”.

It was the first time the Sinn Fein vice-president has said “Northern

Ireland” in the Assembly, a party source told the BBC.

But proceedings were overshadowed before they had begun after the DUP confirmed it would block the election of a Speaker.

Without the role being re-filled, the Assembly cannot function. The outgoing Speaker, Sinn Fein’s Alex Maskey, remains in post until his successor is elected. While there is no Assembly,

MLAS will still collect their salaries. One by one, they filed into the chamber to sign the roll of membership for an Assembly that will stay empty.

So what next? Caretaker ministers can remain in post for up to 24 weeks without a new Executive.

If there is still no new Government by then, Secretary of State Brandon Lewis is required to call a snap election within 12 weeks.

Provided Westminster does not move the goalposts, it means there could be an election by mid-january 2023 at the latest.

For now, the Stormont Assembly falls silent. For how long is anyone’s guess.