In less than two weeks, many UK voters have the chance to take part in local elections. Much political comment has inevitably concentrated on the impact that the results will have on Boris Johnson’s leadership of the Conservative party. Yet the most profound consequences of the 5 May voting could in fact be felt somewhere else altogether – in Northern Ireland.
All 90 members of the Northern Ireland assembly will be elected at the end of next week by proportional representation in 18 five-member constituencies. Yet the new members of the legislative assembly may not have anything to do. Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions have merely been ticking over since the Democratic Unionist party first minister Paul Givan resigned in February in protest against the Northern Ireland protocol in the Brexit withdrawal agreement. Now they may be switched off altogether.
Mr Givan’s resignation was an electioneering gesture. But it was also a sign of the electoral failure that the DUP has inflicted on itself over the past year through its internal rows. The signs are that not much has changed. The current poll average has Sinn Féin on 24% against the DUP’s 19% (both are down from 2017), with the non-sectarian Alliance on 16% and the Ulster Unionists on 14%. When the real votes are counted – with second preference transfers playing an important part – Sinn Féin may emerge as the largest single party. This would give it the right to nominate the new first minister.
The election of a Sinn Féin first minister would be a historic moment. Northern Ireland was specifically created amid the turmoil of 1921 to prevent rule from Dublin. It has been governed by unionists for more than a century. The symbolic prize for republicanism would be big, and the symbolic loss for unionism at least as great. And symbols matter.
In practice, though, the change may be less great than it appears. Power-sharing has already existed, on and off, for the past 24 years. The first minister has no powers that the deputy first minister does not share. A victory based on 24% support is hardly a mandate to govern unilaterally, nor to demand an early referendum on Irish reunification. After 5 May, the two largest parties must govern together, as in the past, or not at all.
This may prove to be wishful thinking. If the DUP finishes second it must decide whether to nominate a deputy first minister. If it does, the institutions can resume work. If it does not, they can’t. Technically, the DUP would have until November to decide, but the loss of status may be hard to overcome. The pressures on the streets may be hard to resist, even if the DUP wanted to. The prospects are not encouraging. A return to direct rule from London is looming.
This is the situation, perhaps no more than a dozen days off now, into which Mr Johnson’s government is apparently proposing to lob an explosive proposal to shred the Northern Ireland protocol that it signed in October 2019. This would be an outrageous move. It would defy the Northern Ireland electorate and decent opinion at home and abroad. It would flout the international law that Britain invokes in Ukraine. It would far exceed the UK’s own authority. Britain’s weakened prime minister seems to be blundering enthusiastically into creating the most serious crisis in Northern Ireland in a generation. It is essential that he is prevented from doing so.
• This article was amended on 25 April 2022 to say that “many”, rather than “all”, UK voters would be able to vote in the impending local elections.
