The DUP is blocking the functioning of the power-sharing institutions in Belfast as part of the party’s protest against the trading arrangement.
New Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has warned that the prospect of him calling a pre-Christmas Assembly election is not an “idle threat”.Asked if he would call a winter election if the Stormont powersharing institutions cannot be restored, he said: “That is what the legislation says. I probably will.“The legislation says that and I have no intention of changing the legislation.”
Asked about whether calling an election before Christmas was an idle threat, he said: “Is it an idle threat? I don’t think so. Meanwhile, a DUP minister has said the focus should not be on an early election, but rather sorting out problems caused by the protocol. “I think it is absolutely diabolical that we are going to go back out to put posters up, knocking on doors to tell people to vote for us in the cost-of-living crisis, when people are sitting in their homes hungry and cold and we are asking them for a vote when we have already failed them.
He added: “I got a sense that the sad circumstances of the last number of days has created a degree of goodwill and there is going to be new impetus put into negotiations between the UK and the EU in regards to the Northern Ireland Protocol, and a change in language I think.
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