Welcome back for another Politics Made Simple blog, and for part ten of my series. In this blog, I’m going to describe Northern Ireland’s state of affairs following May’s Assembly Election in a way that is simple to understand.
So as you will know from the coverage there has been already, following the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly Election, Sinn Féin became the largest party in Northern Ireland, meaning that, for the first time in Northern Ireland’s history, the biggest party in Northern Ireland’s Executive is a Republican Party, which some argue is a sign that Northern Ireland’s constitutional position might be changing.
Then Why, at the time that this blog was published, was There No Sitting Government in Northern Ireland?
Well although five main parties were elected to go back into the executive, only four of them were willing to do so, with one of them deciding to continue their protest in relation to the Northern Ireland Protocol, but to make this sound simpler, we need to go back to before the election.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) pulled their First Minister, Paul Givan, out of the executive in February 2022, and one of their main promises on the run up to the election was that they wouldn’t go back in until after the Protocol was scrapped. Therefore, a lot of the people who voted for the DUP last time will say that they’re doing everything they voted for them to do, which they will also remind people, is exactly what Sinn Féin did for three years.
In the days following the 2022 election results, the DUP went up and signed into Stormont before walking straight back out again. This allows them to continue getting paid while not exactly being in the building, which is the same as the rest of the parties.
But while the DUP staying out has left Northern Ireland without a government, a caretaker government has been working in their place. However, these caretaker ministers have limited powers, and they’re only in place until the 26th of October. After that date, Northern Ireland will be left with no one in charge, unless we get our government back before then or we’re taken under Direct Rule, neither of which are likely to happen.