On February 3, in a major political development in the North of Ireland, Sinn Féin leader Michelle O’Neill was named as the First Minister as part of a power-sharing agreement that ended a two-year-long political impasse.
Emma Little-Pengelly of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was nominated as deputy first minister and former DUP leader Edwin Poots was elected as Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Matthew O’Toole from the Social Democratic and Labor Party (SDLP) was confirmed as leader of the official opposition.
Sinn Féin has termed the appointment of Michelle O’Neill to the regional government’s leadership as a historic feat, as she is the first Irish nationalist to lead the United Kingdom-controlled territory, ever since it was partitioned from Ireland in 1921.
Mary Lou McDonald, the president of Sinn Féin party said in an interview that “The significance of Michelle O’Neill coming in as the first Sinn Féin First Minister is an emblem of the wider change happening across Ireland…There is a conversation underway about what happens next, 26 years almost on since the Good Friday agreement, what does Ireland look like in five years time, in 10 years time,… and that’s a very exciting conversation.” McDonald added, “the days of partition are numbered, it doesn’t work.”
Brexit fallout
The political legislature, the Stormont, was in limbo for over two years due to a DUP boycott over a disagreement with the UK government’s post-Brexit trade agreement, the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP). Paul Givan, the then first minister from the DUP, resigned on February 3, 2022, in protest against the NIP.
In the elections for the Stormont held shortly after, on May 5, 2022, Sinn Féin emerged as the largest party with 27 seats, pulling ahead of the DUP that slid to second place with 25 seats.
Since then, the DUP, in a bid to save face after the electoral rout, decided to not participate in talks on government formation until the Tory government passed the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill in the UK Parliament. The pro-UK and loyalist DUP desperately pressed the Conservative national government to make legal interventions to bypass parts of the NIP, which came into effect as part of Brexit.
As Britain officially left the EU on January 31, 2020, the border between the North of Ireland and the Republic of Ireland became a formal border between the EU and the UK. However, the political leadership in both regions insisted on avoiding the revival of a ‘hard border’ between the two regions as stipulated by the EU to regulate immigration and trade.
In the wake of such an understanding between the North of Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, instead of a ‘hard border’ between the two, a de facto customs border has evolved in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland much to the dismay of the DUP. Such a political development triggered by Brexit has also prompted the republican sections in both parts of Ireland to intensify the struggle for Irish reunification.
Read more: A new spring for Irish unity
On January 30, 2024, exhaustive talks between the DUP leadership and the Tory government culminated in formulating the ‘Safeguarding the Union’ agreement. As per the agreement, according to DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson, the UK government has addressed major concerns raised by his party, facilitating the return of the DUP to cooperate with the Sinn Féin to revive the Northern Ireland executive.
Donaldson also claimed that the ‘Safeguarding the Union’ agreement removed the Irish Sea trading border and thereby cemented the North of Ireland’s place within the UK internal market.
With the political stalemate in the North over, and Sinn Féin finally assuming power, many are watching in anticipation to see how the political situation on the island will advance, especially given that in March 2025, the Republic of Ireland has general elections and Sinn Féin is already projected to make significant gains.