LAST UPDATE | 18 Oct 2022

NORTHERN IRELAND SECRETARY Chris Heaton-Harris has restated his intention to call a Stormont Assembly if the executive is not reformed by 28 October.

Devolved government in the region has been in flux since the most recent election in May, and current legislation requires Heaton-Harris to call a fresh election if an executive is not formed by October 28.

Heaton-Harris said he “can’t see the space” for any emergency legislation to potentially avert the move.

Appearing at the UK House of Commons’ Northern Ireland Affairs committee today, Heaton-Harris said he had discussed the ongoing paralysis at Stormont with his Cabinet colleagues earlier that day.

“If we do not get a reformed executive by one minute past midnight on 28 October, I will be calling an election, that’s what the law requires me to do, and that is what I will be doing,” he told MPs.

When asked by Ian Paisley Jr if the election would have a six-week or seven-week campaign and potentially be held on the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception, Heaton-Harris said:

I’m wary of any days that might have religious connotations. I would be naming the date very quickly after the 28th if I call an election.

He would not specify if a possible election would be on 8 December or 15 December but said Paisley was correct in thinking that the election would be “in that zone”.

On the need for an election, Heaton-Harris said:

“I know that lots of people really do not see or do not want that to happen but it is a legislative requirement.”

He added: “The best solution would be having an executive up and running, without a shadow of a doubt.

“If we come back and people choose not to go into positions … actually I think almost immediately the ministers fall away and it gives me a few tough decisions to make which I’d much rather not be taking but I’m fully cognisant of some of the issues that I’ve been reading about in the newspapers, being told about by real folk in real streets on real doorsteps that they’re facing.

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, and I’d like to think I will be successful, but if I’m not then I’m afraid it is an election.

The DUP is blocking the functioning of the powersharing institutions in Belfast as part of its protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol which has created barriers on the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The UK Government has vowed to secure changes to the protocol, either through a negotiated compromise with the EU or domestic legislation to empower ministers to scrap the arrangements without the approval of Brussels.

May’s election saw the DUP lose three seats to fall to 25 while Sinn Féin remained at 27 seats and became the largest party in the power-sharing agreement for the first time.

With additional reporting by Jamie McCarron