Good morning. You’ve probably had enough of the febrile politics of Westminster for a bit, so may I present you with: the intractable politics of Northern Ireland.
Because of its objections to the Northern Ireland protocol – the arrangements governing post-Brexit trade – the Democratic Unionist party has refused to take up its place since elections in May, and the deadline for doing so is tomorrow. Barring a sudden breakthrough in talks, a new election now looks almost inevitable – but the likelihood is that it won’t solve anything.
Some of the reaction to Rishi Sunak’s arrival in Downing Street has been to claim that the era of Brexit defining politics is over; not in Belfast, it isn’t. As the slow-motion protocol crisis likely enters a new phase, today’s newsletter – with the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent, Rory Carroll – will explain why. Here are the headlines – and scroll down for a brief dispatch from our occasional new feature, Extremely Online.
Five big stories
Politics | Rishi Sunak has dismantled what was left of Liz Truss’s legacy on his first full day as prime minister, abandoning fracking and refusing to guarantee the pensions triple lock or a defence spending rise. Sunak also delayed the autumn statement for a further fortnight.
Suella Braverman | Rishi Sunak’s decision to reappoint Suella Braverman six days after she was forced to resign for a security breach is facing fresh questions after a former Conservative minister claimed the home secretary was responsible for “multiple breaches of the ministerial code”.
Climate crisis | Current pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions will lead to global heating of 2.5C, a level that would condemn the world to catastrophic climate breakdown, the UN has warned. Most countries have not updated their emissions plans as agreed at the Cop26 summit last year.
Ukraine | Kyiv is advising refugees abroad not to return until spring amid fears over whether the country’s damaged energy infrastructure can cope with demand this winter. The plea comes as officials warned that the coming winter may herald the heaviest fighting of the war.
Education | Schools are being warned not to penalise or exclude pupils for wearing their hair in natural afro styles, as well as braids, cornrows and plaits, in new guidance intended to prevent hair discrimination.
In depth: ‘There’s a real sense of malaise in Northern Ireland’
There’s nothing new about political dysfunction at Stormont, Rory Carroll points out: “It’s been one crisis after another. The assembly hasn’t functioned for four of the last six years.” A period of relatively routine operation since 2020 ended with assembly elections in May this year, when Sinn Féin became the largest party for the first time.
The DUP, led by Sir Jeffrey Donaldson (above), promptly escalated its campaign against the Northern Ireland protocol by pulling out of the powersharing agreement, leaving the assembly paralysed. (Sinn Féin thinks it may have been equally motivated by the desire to stop the installation of a Republican first minister for the first time.)
Talks yesterday got nowhere. The deadline for powersharing to resume is tomorrow – and the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Chris Heaton-Harris (kept in his job by Rishi Sunak), has said he will call an election at “one minute past midnight” if it doesn’t happen.
“It adds to a real sense of malaise in Northern Ireland,” Rory said, “because nobody sees a solution coming out of it. And the continued inability to make it work, for years, has raised this big question mark over the viability of the institutions of the Good Friday agreement, and whether they’re fit for purpose.”
Here’s what else you need to know.
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What’s happening today?
The assembly will, in fact, meet at noon, after Sinn Féin launched a recall petition to debate the cost of living crisis and won the support of the centrist Alliance party – but the DUP will use its veto to block the election of a speaker, stopping formal proceedings. “It’s a stunt, really, though they would say that the DUP’s refusal to sit is also a stunt,” Rory said. “Nothing has changed in the circumstances.”
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Why is the DUP blocking Stormont?
As leverage in its campaign to force the British government to meet its demands on the Northern Ireland protocol, which it says must be reformed so that there is no trade border in the Irish Sea. Earlier this month, Donaldson told his party’s conference that “either the prime minister delivers the provisions of the protocol bill by legislation or by negotiation and ensures that our place in the United Kingdom is restored … or there will be no basis to re-enter Stormont”.
The British government (this one, and the last one, and the one before that) would like the DUP to take the progress of the protocol bill, which is in the House of Lords and would allow the UK to unilaterally tear up the agreement covering Northern Ireland, as sufficient reason to restart powersharing. But the DUP says it has to be in law, and potentially in use, to be worth anything.
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Is there any prospect of powersharing being restored?
“I think the chances of that are negligible,” Rory said. “There is just a tiny chance that Heaton-Harris will look for some kind of fudge – there have been deadlines in the past which were legally binding, and a way has been found to kick the can down the road a bit. But he’s been so vocal and specific, with that ‘one minute past midnight’ line, that his credibility will take a hit if he doesn’t stick to it.”
The trouble with the prospect of an election is that it doesn’t carry much of a sense of threat for the DUP, which would probably still finish second to Sinn Féin but do no worse than last time around: in other words, as political commentator Alex Kane wrote for the Irish Times this week: “It will have confirmed the mandate it has for its continuing boycott and keeping its veto.”
“Their position has been quite popular with their supporters,” Rory said. “I wouldn’t say they want an election, but they aren’t worried about it. Their biggest electoral worry is even flintier, less compromising unionists like Traditional Unionist Voice – so their calculation is that going ‘soft’ on the protocol is what would present a risk to their position.” (For more on Traditional Unionist Voice, see this piece of Rory’s from May.)
Sinn Féin “seems equally confident it would match or exceed its previous result” because nationalists would want to keep the DUP in second place, Rory wrote yesterday. The losers in such an outcome would be more moderate parties like the Ulster Unionists (UUP) and the Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP).
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What impact does all of this have on people in Northern Ireland?
Stormont’s paralysis does not stop the basic functions of the state in the region, Rory notes: “Civil servants still do their jobs, the money from London still flows and is still spent. But there are impacts. There are pools of money to help with the cost of living crisis that are not being spent because of the boycott – there is a dispute over how much, but Sinn Féin claims it’s £300m.” Meanwhile, business leaders say that the paralysis is discouraging investment in the region. And there is some dismay that MLAs continue to be paid in full – though they continue to carry out their non-parliamentary duties.
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What happens next?
An election would likely be held in December. There is also a question over whether continued paralysis will lead to “direct rule” from Westminster as in the past: yesterday, Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that if no agreement is reached, Dublin will “fully pursue its consultative role under the Good Friday Agreement” and take a joint role in administering Northern Ireland. Unionists have said that they would refuse to accept that arrangement.
If an election does maintain the current balance between the parties as expected, the DUP will presumably reiterate its demands for the Northern Ireland protocol bill to become law before any movement. That is likely to take time, Alex Kane points out: if the House of Lords makes changes to the bill that are not acceptable to the DUP, Sunak would have to force it through in its original form using the Parliament Act, which can’t happen until next June.
The question in the meantime is whether the UK and EU manage to strike a compromise. “Then it’s about whether the DUP will try to sell it as a success, as something they can work with and accept,” said Rory. “The suspicion is that Donaldson is a pragmatist at heart – but he’s been painted into a corner by his base.”
That would not appear to be in the DUP’s interests in the long-term either. “They can see that all of this is fraying the union, and the longer it goes on the more that will be the effect,” Rory said. In that, at least, they have something in common with every other player in the saga, and in particular the Northern Irish public: a desire for it to be over.
“Everybody wants a deal to put this to bed,” Rory said. “There is huge fatigue. They’ve seen this movie too many times. It’s normalised, but it’s abnormal, it’s exhausting. But there are still enough people who are willing to back Sinn Féin and the DUP.”
Extremely online
Ahead of Friday’s deadline for Elon Musk to take over Twitter, users suspect that the social media site is about to lose whatever remains of its former lustre. Overnight, the US journalist Ben Collins started this thread inviting people to join in some collective nostalgia, writing: “Okay everybody it’s Zero Hour for this website, post your favorite tweets and give them a little kiss goodbye.” The above tweet, included in the replies, remains a classic example of Twitter actually being funny (and how it, and the internet, went wrong somewhere along the line).
What else we’ve been reading
Losing someone unexpectedly can change the trajectory of your life. Amy Fleming writes movingly about her best friend, Alison, who frequented London’s most glamorous clubs with her when they were teenagers in the 1980s. Alison’s sudden death made Fleming face up to some cold hard truths about life. Nimo
Who better than Tim Dowling, an American by birth with a legendarily jaundiced eye for family life, to write about Britain’s relationship with Halloween – an occasion we’ve basically imported from the US. Features giant black spiders, an antique dentist’s chair and a coffin of doom. Archie
Four months after Roe v Wade was overturned, doctors on the frontline are finding it difficult to offer life-saving treatment. Poppy Noor spoke to the medical professionals who have decided to leave states where abortion is now illegal – and what that means for the people who are left behind. Nimo
Loath though I am to recommend rival newsletters: this piece from Derek Thompson’s Work in Progress is a heavy history of British economic decline, and how the UK became “pretty poor for a rich place”, made sharper by being a view from outside the country. Archie
With Brazil’s elections around the corner, Tom Phillips visited Minas Gerais, the state that has picked the president since 1950. As both Jair Bolsanaro and Lula ramp up campaigning there, the divisions in the region grow even deeper. Nimo
Sport
Champions League | Harry Kane was denied a late winner by VAR, consigning Tottenham to a 1-1 draw against Sporting Lisbon. Meanwhile, Liverpool beat Ajax 3-0 to reach the knockout phase and Barcelona lost 3-0 to Bayern Munich as they crashed out of the tournament.
Boxing | Conor Benn has relinquished his licence with the British Boxing Board of Control, the governing body has announced. Benn’s fight against Chris Eubank Jr was cancelled after trace amounts of the fertility drug clomiphene, which elevates testosterone levels in men, were found in his system.
Cricket | Ireland stunned England at the Twenty20 World Cup with a 5-run victory in a rain-affected match. The result makes England’s match against Australia on Friday a virtual eliminator.
The front pages
“Fracking banned and pensions in spotlight as Truss legacy rejected” – the splash in the Guardian print edition this morning. The Telegraph has “Sunak reconsiders tax rises as budget delay saves £15bn”, while the i’s lead is “Cuts warning as Sunak rips up Truss growth plan”. The Express asks: “Do you REALLY want to scrap pension triple lock again?” “Delay to fiscal statement wins breathing space for Hunt”, says the Financial Times. The other Times says “Sunak: Better education can be our silver bullet”.
The Daily Mail reports on “Rishi’s migrant crisis headache” saying 38,000 have crossed the channel this year alone. The Metro portrays Sunak’s PMQs performance as “Rishi’s roar” – but its splash is “Don’t be gay at world cup” after the foreign secretary told fans in Qatar to compromise. The Daily Mirror has “Zelensky: our pride” as “fellow Ukrainians are saluted” in the paper’s Pride of Britain awards.
Today in Focus
Can Rishi Sunak pull the Conservative party back together?
After the chaos of Liz Truss’s short-lived stint as PM, there were claims the Conservative party was ungovernable. Can Rishi Sunak unify it once more?
Cartoon of the day | Steve Bell
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Claye Bowler is the first out transgender artist to have a solo show at Leeds’ Henry Moore Institute. His show, titled Top, has been in the works for more than five years, with Bowler spending much of that time figuring out how sculpture relates to the body and to his transition. A crucial part of the exhibition was showing how ubiquitous queerness and queer people are: “I want it to put trans people on the map in sculpture,” Bowler said.
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Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
