N Ireland faces snap election after McGuinness quits in protest at Foster

 

Northern Ireland looks set for a snap election after the resignation of Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister exposed a widening gulf between his party and the Democratic Unionists over the handling of a public spending scandal.

Mr McGuinness accused Arlene Foster, the first minister and leader of the DUP, of “a clear conflict of interest” over her role in a botched green energy scheme that could cost Northern Ireland’s taxpayers at least £400m.

The departure of the Sinn Féin deputy first minister is likely to trigger fresh elections to the Stormont regional assembly less than a year after the previous ones. In his resignation letter to the Speaker of the Northern Ireland assembly, Mr McGuinness said: “We now need an election to allow the people to make their own judgment on these issues democratically at the ballot box.”

His resignation means Northern Ireland is in effect without executive leadership, since the office of first minister and deputy first minister is a shared one. Neither Ms Foster nor Mr McGuinness can carry out their functions without the co-operation of the other, and Sinn Féin did not name a replacement.

Mr McGuinness’s move will test the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland. It created the institutions that govern the province and stipulates that unionists and nationalists must govern in coalition. Jim Allister, an independent unionist member of the assembly, tweeted: “I’ve long said mandatory coalition would implode. Today it has.”

Any fresh elections in Northern Ireland could have implications for the UK government’s plans to trigger Article 50 for leaving the EU by the end of March.

The Supreme Court in London is due to rule this month on issues of constitutional law affecting Article 50. If it rules the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland must first be consulted, a delay might follow while a government in Stormont is formed.

At the heart of the dispute between the DUP and Sinn Féin is the renewable heating incentive, introduced by Ms Foster when she was enterprise minister in 2012. It was designed to encourage industry to switch to green energy sources but costs ballooned out of control because subsidies were not capped.

Ms Foster has refused to quit and accused her opponents of misogyny. She told a newspaper at the weekend: “If there is an election, there is an election.”