Morning View: Six month delay to Stormont poll deadline needed

A meeting will be held between Chris Heaton-Harris and the local political parties this week, probably tomorrow.

That the secretary of state is holding such talks suggests that no date has yet been decided for an election.

He could canvass the views of local political leaders and still press ahead with a December 15 poll. Or he could call a January 19 election, and stay within the legislative requirement for a vote within 12 weeks of the now passed October 28 deadline.

But a late January contest would be little better than a December one –the campaign would intrude on the Christmas and new year holidays and would alienate the public even further.

The government could weeks ago have begun to use ambiguous language about an election, and so help to re-orientate its policy against a hard deadline. Then it could have legislated for a six month extension.

That it did not do so seemed to be confirmation of the lack of senior officials in Westminster and Whitehall who have much understanding of Northern Ireland, or of the relentless pressures on unionism.

The hitherto rigid sticking to the deadline also made the administration look incoherent – on the one hand sharing the view of the late Lord Trimble that the protocol harms the Belfast Agreement, on the other delighting Sinn Fein by pushing the DUP back into their arms without a clear resolution of the Irish Sea border.

Despite these mis-steps, there is still time to recover the situation and ensure a stable return to Stormont.

It should not be forgotten that the DUP has already compromised significantly in calling for an overhaul of the internal barrier, in a form such as the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, rather than the protocol’s scrapping, which unionists would have good reason to demand.