Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris confirms plan to push back deadline to hold Stormont election

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3 years ago

November 9, 2022

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The UK government has announced it intends to extend the deadline for calling a fresh election in Northern Ireland and cut the pay of Stormont Assembly members.

Making a statement in the House of Commons, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said he will introduce legislation to “provide a short straightforward extension to the period for executive formation”.

The deadline for the Northern Ireland parties to form a fresh power sharing executive ran out on 28 October.

The current law stated that Mr Heaton-Harris was obliged to call a fresh election within 12 weeks of the deadline passing – which would be 19 January.

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Mr Heaton-Harris told MPs he was now extending the deadline for parties to form an executive by six weeks to December 8, with the option of a further six-week extension.

The 12-week clock for calling an election will now come into effect either on 8 December – meaning an election would have to be held by March – or six weeks later on 19 January, meaning a poll would need to be held by April at the latest.

The Northern Ireland secretary did not say how much he is proposing to reduce MLA pay by while Stormont remains in deadlock.

The moves give parties in Northern Ireland more time to break the stalemate at Stormont.

The proposals will require legislation to be laid and passed at Westminster to be enacted.

“The one thing that everyone agrees on is that we must try and find a way through this current impasse – where I have a legal duty to call an election that few want and all say will change nothing,” Mr Heaton-Harris told MPs.

“Thus, I will be introducing legislation to provide a short, straightforward extension to the period for Executive formation – extending the current period by six weeks to 8 December, with the potential of a further six week extension to 19 January if necessary.

“This aims to create the time and space needed for talks between the UK and EU to develop and for the Northern Ireland parties to work together to restore the devolved institutions as soon as possible.”

He continued: “People across Northern Ireland are frustrated that MLAs continue to draw a full salary whilst not performing all of the duties they were elected to do.

“I will thus be asking for the House’s support to enable me to reduce MLAs’ salaries appropriately.”

Mr Heaton-Harris also confirmed he will give extra powers to Stormont civil servants to enable them to run the region’s public services as the impasse continues.

A Democratic Unionist Party boycott of the devolved institutions, in protest at Brexit’s Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP), has prevented an administration being formed since the May election earlier this year.

The protocol was aimed at avoiding a hard border with Ireland but has created economic barriers on the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, causing resentment and anger among many unionists and loyalists.

The DUP has refused to return to Stormont until decisive action is taken over the treaty.

DUP MLA Edwin Poots said the UK government must recognise that until the Protocol is replaced with arrangements that unionists can support there will be no basis to restore devolution in Northern Ireland.

“Our opposition to the Protocol is not dependent on salaries. The sooner the government deals with the Protocol, the sooner Stormont can be restored,” he said.

“It is a matter for the secretary of state if he wishes to call an election and what legislation he wishes to introduce. We are ready to renew and strengthen our mandate. Elections are the bedrock of democracy and unlike others we will readily take our case to the electorate.”

While in the Commons, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told Mr Heaton-Harris that while courage, understanding, and compromise are “good words”, what is needed is “a solution that sees the institutions restored on the basis that Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom”.

Ireland’s Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney welcomed the decision saying it allows further space for progress in the EU-UK talks.

“I urge the UK authorities to make use of this renewed opportunity to engage positively, and with real urgency, in the knowledge that the European Commission has listened carefully to the concerns of people across Northern Ireland, including and especially unionists,” he said in a statement.

But Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle O’Neill said the uncertainty over an election was not good enough.

“What we now have are new deadlines, multiple deadlines, in which he may or may not call an election,” she told reporters at Stormont.

“So this is not a good enough space for people to be in and I think the fundamental question today has to be around what’s next?

“What do the British government intend to do to find an agreed way forward on the protocol?”

Ms O’Neill also questioned why Mr Heaton-Harris had not targeted the pay cut at DUP MLAs who were refusing to engage with the devolved institutions.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood welcomed the move to cut MLA pay, saying the DUP “have no justifiable reason for hanging about while people’s homes get colder and their cupboards get emptier”.

Alliance Party leader Naomi Long welcomed “clarity” from the Northern Ireland secretary, but added: “However, the overall picture has not changed. As long as any one party can take the institutions hostage, they will.

“Therefore we need reform of the Assembly and executive to stop that happening, or else we could easily be back in this same situation again in a matter of months.”

Last week, the Northern Ireland secretary confirmed that a Stormont election will not be held in December, saying he had listened to “sincere concerns” across the region about the impact and cost of a fresh poll at this time.

The UK government has vowed to secure changes to the agreement, either by way of a negotiated compromise with the EU or through proposed domestic legislation which would enable ministers to scrap the arrangements without the approval of Brussels.

Opponents have likened the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill to “placing a gun on the table” at talks with the EU aimed at finding a solution and argues it breaks international law as well as risking a trade war.

World

Stakes high for Trump-Putin summit as Zelenskyy faces nightmare deal

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10 hours ago

August 10, 2025

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Stakes high for Trump-Putin summit as Zelenskyy faces nightmare deal

For Ukraine – its exhausted, brave soldiers, its thousands of bereaved families mourning their dead, and its beleaguered president – it is exactly what they feared it would be.

They fear the compromise they will be forced to make will be messy, costly, unfair and ultimately beneficial to the invading tyrant who brought death and destruction to their sovereign land.

Six weeks ago, I spoke to President Zelenskyy in London.

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I put it to him in our Sky News interview that Presidents Trump and Putin were heading towards making a deal between themselves, a grand bargain, in which Ukraine was but one piece on the chessboard.

Zelenskyy smiled as if to acknowledge the reality ahead.

He paused and then he said this: “We are not going to be a card in talks between great nations, and we will never accept that… I definitely do not want to see global deals between America and Russia.

“We don’t need it. We are a separate story, a victim of Russian aggression and we will not reward it.”

It was a response that betrayed his greatest fear – that this will become essentially a Trump negotiation in which Zelenskyy and Ukraine will be told “take it or leave it”.

And, by the way, if you “leave it”, then it will be painful.

Harsh realities

It’s the prospect that now confronts Zelenskyy as Trump and Putin plough ahead on a course that has clear attractions for both of them.

Of course, Zelenskyy is right to say there can be no deal without Ukraine. But there are harsh realities at play here.

Trump wants a deal on Ukraine – any deal – that he can chalk up as a win. He wants it badly and he wants it now.

It’s the impediment to a broader strategic deal with Putin and he wants it out of the way. It’s what he does, and it’s the way he does it. And President Putin knows it.

He knows Trump, he sees an opportunity in Trump, and he can’t get across Russia to Alaska fast enough. He will be back at global diplomacy’s top table.

Always a deal to be done

Make no mistake, when Trump says he just wants to stop the killing, he means it. Such wanton loss of young lives offends him. He keeps saying it.

He sees war, by and large, as an unnecessary waste of life and of money. Deals are there to be done. There’s always a deal.

Sadly for Ukraine, in this case, it is unlikely to be a fair deal.

How can any deal be “fair” when you are the victim of outrageous brutality and heinous crimes.

But it may well be the deal they have to take unless they want to fight an increasingly one-sided war with much less help from Trump and America.

A senior UK diplomat told me if things turn out as feared, it should not be called a land-for-peace deal. It should be called annexation “because that’s what it is”.

But here’s the rub.

Peace, calm, the end of the nightly terror of war has much to recommend it. In short, a bad peace can often seem better than no peace. But, ultimately, rewarded dictators always come back for more.

If Ukraine has to accept a bad peace, then it will want clear security guarantees to make sure it cannot happen again.

It is the very least they deserve.

There is much at stake in Alaska.

World

Desperation only grows in Gaza, as crowds swell at protests in Israel

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10 hours ago

August 10, 2025

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Desperation only grows in Gaza, as crowds swell at protests in Israel

As if life in Gaza wasn’t hard enough, there is now a heatwave – compounding the problems of minimal water, food and the basics you need to keep a family alive.

To keep your children halfway clean, when you’ve been displaced over and over again, forced to live under tarpaulin rammed up against your neighbours.

“We suffer greatly, especially because we live in tents,” says Riham Akel, who was displaced from the north and now lives in Gaza City.

“They are made of cloth and plastic that do not protect us from the heat. In addition, there is no electricity, drinking water or water for washing, no fans or air conditioning.”

Given Israel’s planned takeover of Gaza City – and the evacuation of the 800,000 or so people now living there – it’s likely she’ll be forced to move again.

In Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, the crowds have swelled these past two Saturdays – almost doubling after Hamas published propaganda videos showing two of the remaining hostages starving in captivity – and now this week, Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to push ahead with full security control of the Gaza Strip.

People here just want it to stop.

Yael said: “I feel like a hostage in my own country, as though no one listens to me – 80% of the citizens don’t want it anymore.”

“When you talk about the government it’s not only Gaza,” says David Solomon. “They are trying to undermine the democracy in Israel, they’re trying willingly to destroy the whole of Israel, they don’t care just for another year or two of their survival.”

There are also calls for IDF soldiers to refuse to carry out Netanyahu’s plan to take over Gaza City.

Another major point of contention is what many see as the failure of the International Red Cross to bring food to the hostages. Food for the Palestinians in Gaza is not much discussed, except for a small group on the fringes.

“We believe that the Israeli public is ignorant on purpose,” says Gilad Melzer – holding up a sign saying “Stop Genocide” with a photo of a starving child.

“Some of it wants to stay ignorant and some, the government wants to keep them ignorant of what is going on in Gaza and they’re ignorant as well of what is going on in the occupied territories.”

Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have made up his mind, though. He will ramp up the fight, despite international outcry, despite the opposition of his military leadership and despite the tens of thousands who rally each week in Hostages Square, hoping someone in government will bother to listen.

There is a sense of hopelessness here – that the solidarity of numbers still makes so little difference.

World

Gaza ‘injured his soul’: Israeli soldier died by suicide two days before he was due to return to duty

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10 hours ago

August 10, 2025

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Gaza 'injured his soul': Israeli soldier died by suicide two days before he was due to return to duty

When your son is risking his life fighting in Gaza, you don’t expect to hear news he’s been killed on a rest period at home.

Eliran Mizrahi had served 187 days as a reservist in Gaza since 8 October, before he died by suicide in June last year.

His mother Jenny has turned Eliran’s childhood bedroom into a shrine. The 40-year-old’s combat vest hanging on the wall still has sand in it from Gaza.

The cap he was wearing when he died, sits just above it on a shelf laden with memories of his life.

Israel is seeing a wave of soldiers like Eliran taking their own lives – five died by suicide just last month.

IDF (Israel Defence Forces) investigations have found it is what they have seen and done in Gaza that are the cause, according to reports by the Israeli public broadcaster.

Eliran’s mother told Sky News her son returned from Gaza a changed man and she fears there will be many more suicides among Israeli soldiers.

“He never left Gaza in his mind,” says Jenny.

“When he came back he couldn’t go back to work. He was a great father with a lot of patience. And he lost his patience with his children, with people.

“He was very silent. He didn’t sleep at night, he had nightmares. We didn’t know anything about it. He didn’t speak. Whenever we asked him he said everything is okay.”

Jenny describes Eliran as someone who was happy and friends with everyone. A father of four “with a big heart” and a big smile. But his experience of the war “injured his soul”.

Initially, he was deployed to clear bodies of people slaughtered by Hamas at the Nova Festival on 7 October and then deployed to Gaza a day later.

Eliran was active on social media and shared videos of his time in Gaza. He was commander of a unit of D9 bulldozers that destroyed buildings and tunnel shafts.

After his death, his D9 partner, Guy Zaken, told a parliamentary committee they were often shot at and they ran over hundreds of bodies.

Yet they filmed themselves smiling and singing to send to their families. Eliran shared some of those videos on social media.

Israel has levelled vast parts of Gaza. Eliran’s actions were part of a systematic campaign the UN says has damaged or destroyed over 90% of Gaza’s homes. Human rights experts warn this could be a war crime.

Eliran was pulled out of Gaza after he sustained knee injuries in an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) attack on his bulldozer.

‘The bodies and the blood’

He was later diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) – we don’t know the cause of his trauma but in the end he couldn’t live with it. Two days before he was due to return to active duty, he took his own life.

“What he saw over there in Gaza injured his soul. You see all the bodies over there and all the blood. It hurts your soul,” says Eliran’s mother.

Israeli media is reporting at least 18 soldiers have taken their own lives so far this year.

Thousands are suffering with PTSD. And more and more reservists are quietly refusing to turn up for duty.

The IDF says supporting its service members is a top priority and it invests significant resources in doing so, including deploying mental health officers in all military units.

Tuly Flint was one of those officers. A clinical social worker and expert in trauma therapy in his professional life, and a lieutenant colonel in the military reserves, he was deployed to offer psychological support to troops who served in Gaza.

Last year, after treating many soldiers and becoming exposed to the extreme suffering of Gazans, Tuly came to the conclusion the war had no purpose and it was a crime against humanity. So he refused to continue to serve in the IDF.

“At the beginning of the war what we usually saw was simple PTSD. People who talk about the horrors they saw in the first few weeks with the massacre of Hamas,” says Tuly.

“But since the second month of the war, people started talking about what takes place on the Palestinian side.

“Even people that were not talking about Palestinians’ rights, or anything like that, they started talking about the fact that they saw bodies of children, of old people, of women.”

‘You think, are they lying to me’

I asked Tuly how soldiers feel hearing Benjamin Netanyahu‘s narrative that there is no starvation in Gaza – that the images we see are a lie.

The Israeli military bears witness to what is happening in Gaza in a way most of the world, including international journalists, still can’t.

“When you hear your government and your commanders telling things that are not true, you start thinking, are they lying to me also?” says Tuly.

“When you hear your prime minister lying about things that you saw in Gaza, things that you did … people talk about torching houses, people talk about a ‘deadline’ – not a metaphor – a deadline when people cross they will be killed no matter if they are children or women … they see people starving and they also see the chaos.”

After nearly two years of war, the human cost is weighing heavily on Israeli society. A majority of Israelis now believe that only a deal, not military pressure, will bring the remaining hostages home.

And the humanitarian crisis unfolding just across the border is becoming a source of public unease. Former military and intelligence chiefs are also now against the war.

The Commanders for Israel’s Security group (CIS) has argued, in its professional judgement, “Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel” – and has written to Donald Trump asking him to compel Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war.

Tuly Flint says there’s an erosion of trust between soldiers and those leading them.

“When you come back home and you hear so many people – former chiefs of staff, former heads of the security bodies of Israel – saying ‘this war has no aim anymore’ … you say to yourself: ‘I hear from former chiefs of staff that I’m killing hostages by waging war and my government is still sending me there?’

“When you see the pictures that you’ve seen with your own eyes and your government says ‘no this is a lie, no this is propaganda’, this makes you distrust everyone. And when you distrust everyone, why would you ask for help?”

The mental and moral burden on soldiers could be about to grow.

Despite strong objections from the IDF’s chief of staff, Israel is expanding military operations in Gaza with plans to take control of the entire territory.

We understand that references to suicide in any context can be difficult for some people. We provide details of support available from the Samaritans where any such references are included. You can find these here: call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.