UK delays calling N Ireland election amid Brexit impasse

LONDON — Northern Ireland’s political deadlock deepened Friday when the U.K. government delayed calling an early election for the Belfast-based Assembly after a deadline expired.

The limbo means more uncertainty and delays to government decisionmaking at a time when many people in Northern Ireland are struggling with soaring food and energy prices.

A deadline for the Northern Ireland Assembly to elect a governing executive passed at midnight Thursday amid a dispute over post-Brexit trade rules. Under the rules of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing politics, a new election must be held within 12 weeks. Civil servants will keep essential services running in the meantime.

U.K. Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris had been expected to announce a mid-December poll date. Instead, he said he was holding talks with the main political parties.

“I hear when parties say they really do not want an election at all,” he said. But he added that under the political rules he had “limited options.”

“I am still going to be calling an election,” Heaton-Harris said.

“This is a really serious situation,” he added. “As of a minute past midnight last night there are no longer ministers in office in the Northern Ireland Executive. I will take limited but necessary steps to ensure that public services do continue to run and to protect the public finances, but there is a limit to what (I) can do.”

Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly met Thursday but failed to elect a speaker, the first step toward restoring a government that has been on ice since May. Attempts to nominate a speaker were blocked by the biggest British unionist body, the Democratic Unionist Party, as part of its protest over post-Brexit customs checks that unionists see as undermining Northern Ireland’s British identity.