The Northern Secretary has said he “cannot be clearer” that he will call a fresh Assembly election if Stormont is not restored by the end of the month.
“If we do not get a reformed Executive by one minute past midnight on the 28th of October, I will be calling an election,” Chris Heaton-Harris said.
“That’s what the law requires me to do and that is what I will be doing,” he told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster on Tuesday.
The Secretary of State confirmed any election would be held before Christmas and implied the likely date would be December 15th.
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Northern Ireland has been without a functioning Assembly since the elections in May, when the DUP refused to re-enter the power-sharing government until its concerns over the Northern Ireland protocol were resolved to its satisfaction.
Unionists oppose the protocol because they argue it puts an economic border between it and Great Britain and has undermined its constitutional position as part of the UK.
At the DUP conference earlier this month the party leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, made clear his party’s position remained the same and there was “no basis to re-enter Stormont” unless its demands were met.
At the committee session on Tuesday, the DUP MP Ian Paisley indicated there would be no change in the party’s stance, saying to Mr Heaton-Harris “I just want to get something in the diary” and asking if the election would be held on December 8th or 15th.
The Northern Secretary replied he would “like to think it’d be a relatively short campaign but I’m wary of any days that might have some sort of religious connotation to them”, which has been interpreted as referring to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th.
He said that if the Assembly was not restored by October 28th, he would name the date for an election “very quickly afterwards.”
Mr Heaton-Harris reiterated that his preference was for the Executive to be restored but said he “can’t see the space” for any emergency legislation to postpone an election.
“I know that lots of people really do not … want that to happen but it is a legislative requirement.
“Lots of things would be a lot easier if the Executive were running and so my focus is trying to charm, beguile, coax everybody into that place, that they come back into the Executive,” he said. “I’d like to think I will be successful, but if I’m not then I’m afraid it is an election.”
Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney is due to meet Mr Heaton-Harris in Belfast on Wednesday.
Speaking in Dublin on Tuesday, he reiterated the Government’s position that there was “no reason” the Assembly could not be restored immediately.
Mr Coveney said he hoped there would not be a fresh election but that is the legal position.
“There will be a lot of work between now and the end of next week to try to avoid an election that I believe is unnecessary,” he said. “The last thing that most people in NI want right now is another election cycle.”
