UK rejects call for early election in Northern Ireland

Bloomberg

The UK government ruled out the prospect of an early election in Northern Ireland, saying it will be held on May 5 as planned.
“It’s right” to allow lawmakers “time and space to pass legislation,” Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told reporters in London. “I’ll be working to support the parties to do that and then we can have an election of May 5.”
It ends the uncertainty over the date of Northern Irish Assembly elections following the resignation of the Democratic Unionist Party First Minister Paul Givan last week, collapsing the devolved government’s executive. Sinn Fein, which shares power with the DUP, wanted the election brought forward.
Under the peace agreement in Northern Ireland, the first minister and deputy first minister — one unionist and one nationalist —have equal powers and one cannot be in place without the other. Givan’s resignation on Feb. 3 therefore meant Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill also had to step down.
However, new legislation means the Assembly is able to continue functioning in the absence of the executive, Lewis said.
Even so, there’s no certainty that the political impasse will be resolved by an election. DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has said the party won’t return to an executive unless issues related to the Northern Irish Protocol — the part of the Brexit agreement which deals with trade to the region from the rest of the UK — are resolved. That is currently the subject of negotiations between Boris Johnson’s UK government and the European Union.
Lewis is traveling Tuesday to the US to meet congressmen and members of the administration to discuss the protocol and its impact on Northern Ireland.