The UK government on Thursday night rejected any suggestion of joint authority for Northern Ireland in the absence of a power-sharing government at Stormont, saying it was “not being considered”.
“The UK government is absolutely clear that the consent principle governs the constitutional position of Northern Ireland,” a Northern Ireland Office spokesman said. “We will not countenance any arrangements that are inconsistent with that principle.”
Northern Ireland is facing an Assembly election less than two weeks before Christmas after an 11th-hour attempt to restore the Stormont institutions failed on Thursday, when the DUP again refused to nominate a speaker as part of its protest over the Northern Ireland protocol.
Failure to do so by midnight means the northern secretary is now legally obliged to call an election, which is expected to take place on December 15th.
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In a statement on Thursday night, the Government reiterated comments from Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar that in the event of a “sustained period” with no functioning Executive or Assembly in the North, “there cannot be a return to the direct rule arrangements of the past”.
The Government, it said, would “fully pursue its consultative role under the Good Friday Agreement”.
Under the agreement, the Government has a consultative role — via the mechanism of the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference — on non-devolved matters affecting Northern Ireland, which it said was “in recognition of the Irish Government’s ‘special interest’ in Northern Ireland”.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Mr Martin emphasised the Government’s preference was for the restoration of the Assembly but indicated the Government’s role would become more significant in its absence, saying: “When you don’t have devolution, that broadens what non-devolved matters means and can encompass.”
The DUP rejected any suggestion of joint authority, with the DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson saying it would be “an abandonment of the Good Friday Agreement” and the “Irish Government needs to hear this loud and clear: unionists will never accept joint authority”.
“If the Irish Government thinks that by threatening me or my party with joint authority that that will help us to get to a solution that it will move us forward on the basis of mutual respect and understanding then I’m afraid the Irish Government is deluded,” he said. “If that’s what the Irish Government wants to do then let them be honest and say it,” he added.
During the recall debate in the Assembly chamber on Thursday, Sinn Féin vice-president Michelle O’Neill reiterated the call from her party, saying the “alternative to power-sharing is joint authority from London and Dublin”.
If the DUP continued to block power-sharing “direct rule, as we have known it in the past, is not an option,” she said.
