Historic poll victory for Sinn Fein
THE former political wing of the IRA, Sinn Fein, hailed its first election win in Northern Ireland’s history as a “defining moment” for the British-controlled region and called for a debate on the creation of a united Ireland.
“Today represents a very significant moment of change. It’s a defining moment in our politics and for our people,” the head of the party in the region, Michelle O’Neill, said.
She said there should now be an “honest debate” around the party’s goal of unifying the territory with the Republic of Ireland.
In addition to the regional assembly elections in Northern Ireland, there were other local and regional elections in the UK.
England, Wales and Scotland also voted on Thursday, punishing embattled Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party which lost nearly 500 seats in local elections, but without a landslide for the main opposition Labour Party.
The general election is in 2024 but these midterms are an indicator of how the main political parties are doing.
Johnson is expected to lay out his post-election plan of action in the Queen’s Speech in parliament tomorrow, which will have to take into account the thorny issue of forming a government in Northern Ireland, which has been riven for decades by sectarian bloodshed.
Sinn Fein, which wants a referendum on reunifying Ireland a century after Northern Ireland was created as a Protestant statelet, targeted 28 seats to claim the role of first minister for leader O’Neill. After winning her own seat on Friday, O’Neill called it “the election of a generation” and “time for real change”.
The pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) occupied the role of first minister in the outgoing Stormont assembly, before it collapsed the executive in protest at post-Brexit trading rules between the UK and the EU.
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson conceded on Saturday that his nationalist rivals in Sinn Fein were on course for a historic election victory.
“It looks at the moment as if Sinn Fein will emerge as the largest party,” he told Sky News on Saturday, while reiterating that the DUP would refuse to join a new government without changes to a post-Brexit trading deal between the UK and the EU.
Donaldson said the government in London should rip up the Protocol, which unionists argue threatens their place in the wider UK.
“The government needs to act decisively on the protocol and until they do, I won’t be nominating ministers to the executive,” he told the BBC after the DUP’s vote share slid.
Without DUP endorsement of a new executive, Northern Ireland’s government cannot function, and the parties would have 24 weeks to resolve their differences or face a new election.
The other big winner was the cross-community Alliance Party, which said its strong showing in third place underlined the need for Northern Ireland to move past old divisions.
Alliance leader Naomi Long said voters cared most about a cost-of-living crisis affecting the UK.
British media reported that London’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, would be in Belfast today for talks before the Queen’s Speech, which lays out the government’s programme.
The Conservatives lost control of key councils, including in London, and suffered an overall loss of almost 400 councillors in Thursday’s vote.
Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi insisted on Saturday that Johnson remained an electoral asset, despite becoming the first prime minister to be fined by police, during an ongoing probe into lockdown-busting parties at Downing Street.
An unknown number of Conservative MPs have submitted letters of no-confidence in Johnson, and Zahawi said that “people don’t like to vote for split parties, for teams that are divided”.
“We’ve got a Queen’s Speech next week where we will demonstrate to the nation that the second half of this parliament is all about dealing with repairing the economy, recovering from Covid, the backlog of the NHS (National Health Service) and national security,” Zahawi told Sky News.
Simon Usherwood, professor of politics and international studies at The Open University, said: “The picture does look more pessimistic for Johnson and I think it is going to raise more questions about whether he can survive a challenge.”
Tory backbenchers could start plotting against Johnson when they return to parliament this week “particularly if the Queen’s Speech doesn’t deliver something that looks like a real plan of action”, including on the Northern Ireland protocol, he said.