New leaders take over amid political turmoil

LONDON — Northern Ireland got new government leaders on Thursday after the two biggest parties broke a standoff that had threatened to scuttle the ProtestantCatholic powersharing administration.

But the move inflamed tensions inside the proBritish Democratic Unionist Party, as party legislators, angry at not being consulted, tried to block party leader Edwin Poots from appointing a new first minister.

Poots went ahead and nominated Paul Givan, who was confirmed by the Northern Ireland Assembly as first minister.

Michelle O’Neill of Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein was reappointed deputy first minister.

Accepting the nomination, Givan said politicians “must recognize there is more in common than separates us.”

But his own party was deeply divided. The party’s officers met Thursday amid anger at Poots, who has been leader for only a month, for what some saw as caving in to Sinn Fein pressure.

Sinn Fein had threatened not to fill the post of deputy because of a feud about protections for the Irish language. That would have mothballed the administration — under the powersharing arrangements set up as part of Northern Ireland’s peace accord, a government can’t be formed unless both roles are filled.

The language issue cuts to the heart of tensions between Northern Ireland’s mostly Catholic nationalists, who see themselves as Irish, and Protestants, who largely identify as British.

The Northern Ireland Assembly, in which the DUP is the largest party, has failed to pass a law ensuring protections for the Irish and Ulster Scots languages, despite the powersharing parties agreeing last year to do so.

But after crisis talks with the two parties, the British government said early Thursday it would step in and pass the legislation in the U.K. Parliament if the Belfast assembly did not do it by September.

Sinn Fein welcomed the move, with party leader Mary Lou McDonald saying it had broken the “logjam of DUP obstructionism.” Poots accused Sinn Fein of creating instability, but agreed to nominate a first minister.