UK to extend Northern Ireland election deadline

The UK is to extend the deadline for elections to be held in Northern Ireland until April to give London and Brussels more time to resolve problems on post-Brexit trade rules that have paralysed politics in the region.

Chris Heaton-Harris, UK secretary of state for Northern Ireland, told the House of Commons he would introduce legislation to provide “a short, straightforward extension” to the current January 19 legal deadline to form an executive.

The Democratic Unionist party has vetoed formation of a power-sharing executive since elections in May, and has boycotted the Stormont assembly, over its demands for sweeping changes to the post-Brexit trade arrangements.

The DUP ran down the clock on the previous October 28 deadline for an executive to be formed before a vote would have to be called, but Heaton-Harris reversed an initial plan to call a fresh election on December 15. Political parties, businesses and civic leaders in Northern Ireland made it clear that no one wanted a pre-Christmas poll.

The new electoral deadlines would extend “the current period by six weeks to December 8 with the potential for a further six-week extension to January 19 if necessary,” Heaton-Harris said.

Both of those dates would require a vote to be held within the subsequent 12 weeks — meaning the latest possible date would be April 13, coinciding with the anniversary of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended Northern Ireland’s conflict.

“This aims to create the time and space needed for talks between the UK and the EU to develop and for Northern Ireland parties to work together to restore devolved institutions,” Heaton-Harris said.