Northern Ireland is in crisis – POLITICO

BELFAST — First, the government collapsed. Then austerity began. New elections are now scheduled to be canceled and tens of thousands of workers are on strike.

This is Northern Ireland in 2024. Hit by political deadlock, public sector job cuts and large-scale labor unrest, both British ministers in London and the local power broker the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) are struggling to restore a coherent government in this situation. There is no desire to do what is necessary. A corner of Britain that continues to be divided.

Almost two years after the DUP first disrupted the Northern Ireland Administration, the community government at the heart of the region’s decades-long peace process, its leadership has announced an end to its boycott on co-operation with Sinn Féin. It doesn’t seem to be close. Ireland’s Republican Party overtook the opposition DUP to become the largest party in the last Stormont election in May 2022, but has led the government ever since under a power-sharing system that the DUP has refused to reinstate. I’m looking forward to that.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris is similarly reluctant to fill the political vacuum, refusing to resume “direct rule” from Westminster. Northern Ireland has been ruled directly from London through most of the bloody decades of the 20th century, and through the breakdown of power-sharing at Stormont from 2002 to 2007.

The vacuum of the past year has been filled, at least in part, by Northern Ireland’s senior civil servants, who have been left running the country without the help of elected politicians. They complain of a lack of authority and democratic authority to make essential spending and cost-cutting decisions, a weakness that is causing public services to wither from within.

The protracted crisis sparked months of labor unrest, and on Thursday 16 unions staged the region’s first large-scale organized strike in half a century, plunging Northern Ireland into a standstill. It may not be the last.

Gerry Murphy, from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said: “This is a campaign that we will continue.” “This is a campaign we will win.”

Labor pains

On Thursday, more than 170,000 workers, nearly a fifth of all workers, received access to schools, transportation, non-emergency health care and government funding following public calls for long-pending wage increases. Almost all services have been shut down.

The promised pay rises were secured in principle several years ago as part of the UK’s wider collective bargaining agreement, but with the relevant Stormont ministers not in office, most of this funding will go to Northern Ireland pay and pensions. Not yet arrived. In their absence, the UK Treasury is withholding the necessary funds.

This was due to change as part of a conditional funding package Mr Heaton-Harris presented to local stakeholders last month to break the DUP impasse. Heaton-Harris says Britain will offer an extraordinary financial support of £3.3bn to ensure a successful resumption of power-sharing if Democratic Unionist leader Jeffrey Donaldson agrees to lead the party back to Stormont announced that it would provide. The package includes him paying £584m towards outstanding payment claims.

But despite the exasperation of other parties and Donaldson’s own efforts to telegraph his next move, the DUP leader has been unable to convince his most powerful MPs to see the proposal as an opportunity for compromise. I couldn’t do it.

Mr Donaldson has since insisted that talks with UK government officials will drag on indefinitely until the DUP wins further concessions on Northern Ireland’s complex post-Brexit trade deal, with unionists claiming They fear it is pushing the economy towards a united Ireland.

Indeed, dangling billions in front of the DUP appears to have only backfired. Heaton-Harris has repeatedly said the £3.3 billion will not be paid until the DUP returns to Stormont, a condition both British unionists and Irish nationalists have accused of blackmail.

mass riot

Reflecting that anger, tens of thousands of striking workers braved frigid conditions to march in central Belfast, Londonderry and Enniskillen on Thursday, venting their anger and marching across England, Scotland and Wales. demanded that their salaries be increased to the level of their professional colleagues.

As an example, newly qualified teachers in Northern Ireland earn around £24,000 a year compared to £30,000 in other parts of the UK, according to official UK statistics. In real terms, the income of public sector workers in Ireland has fallen by 11% during the last two years of government collapse.

Heaton Harris, a Brexiteer who was appointed to the post by former prime minister Liz Truss during her short reign in Downing Street, has struggled to find effective pressure points for Mr Donaldson. Mr Donaldson’s DUP is frequently cited as the most stubborn party. Europe.

Mr Heaton-Harris’ most common threat, that of calling Stormont an early election, proved particularly absurd as it could help the DUP. Mr Donaldson hopes to regain the ground lost to politicians representing moderate centrists who performed unusually well in the 2022 vote.

In fact, the prospect of a new election is one of the reasons Donaldson continues to play time. Accepting a deal now – that the current trade deal will survive post-Brexit – would likely split the party and thwart even more hardline trade unionist rivals who refuse to work with Sinn Féin under any circumstances. This will encourage support for the traditional unionist voice.

Therefore, stagnation and misery are likely to continue.

Unions supporting Thursday’s mass strike have vowed to continue holding similar protests until Mr Heaton-Harris removes pay demands from the DUP’s proposed sweetheart deal.

But Mr Heaton-Harris appears ready to break Stormont’s woes once again, with half-hearted and half-baked funding meaning Northern Ireland’s public services continue to suffer.

The minister is expected to announce emergency legislation next week that will give both him and the permanent secretary for Northern Ireland a new “hybrid” combination of powers and responsibilities for the region.

However, former permanent secretary Andrew McCormick, who oversaw Northern Ireland’s Brexit process, said Mr Heaton-Harris’s previous mismanagement of the situation meant that both the Stormont mandarins and the Secretary of State himself had not “understood the legal basis for strategic decisions”. “It means not having any.” Is required. Governments can and should urgently change course. Abdication is unacceptable. ”

The bill is also expected to push back the date of the next legally required Stormont election again to early 2025, by which time general elections will have been held across the UK and the Conservative Party will be in power for 14 years. rule is likely to end in Northern Ireland in early 2025. The problem with the British Labor Party.