UK should do a ‘bit extra’ to restore Stormont, says former N Ireland leader

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An influential former Northern Ireland first minister has appealed to the UK government to “do the bit extra” to restore the region’s paralysed executive as optimism mounts of a countdown to a deal by the end of the year.

Peter Robinson, first minister and Democratic Unionist Party leader from 2008-16, told the FT that London needed to scrap parts of the landmark post-Brexit deal known as the Windsor framework and secure agreement with Brussels on how to align future trade regulations in order to end the political crisis.

“I think they [the UK government] have strung it out . . . I don’t see them being able to stretch it out much beyond the end of the year,” Robinson said ahead of meetings between the UK and Irish governments in Dublin.

He urged London to “do the bit extra rather than holding back” and “make [DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson] an offer he can’t refuse”.

The DUP, Northern Ireland’s biggest unionist party, triggered Northern Ireland’s political stand-off in February 2022 in protest at a post-Brexit trade deal that put a customs border in the Irish Sea.

Earlier this year UK prime minister Rishi Sunak and the EU agreed the framework, which businesses hailed as a way to transform Northern Ireland through its privileged access to both EU and UK markets.

But the DUP is demanding legislation to cement Northern Ireland’s status as part of the UK and its ability to trade with Britain.

Robinson’s intervention came after Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said at the weekend that he was “a little bit more optimistic” about the prospect of a deal before Christmas or in the new year.

But on Friday, he warned: “We’ve been in this position before so I’m almost afraid to be optimistic given there have been false dawns.”

Varadkar held talks with Chris Heaton-Harris, the UK’s Northern Ireland secretary, and Levelling Up minister Michael Gove, in Dublin at a meeting of the British-Irish Council on Thursday and Friday.

Heaton-Harris, who insists that genuine progress is being made, will hold further talks with Irish foreign minister Micheál Martin next Tuesday at the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, also in Dublin.

Robinson said London needed to legislate for a “reassertion of the sovereignty of the UK over Northern Ireland”, adding that the Windsor framework’s “green lane” — which lowers the impact of the customs border by eliminating checks on goods staying in the region — must go.

Northern Ireland remains subject to EU trade rules but if they diverge from UK regulations in future, “there must be a role for Northern Ireland to determine what happens in Northern Ireland”, he said.

But Robinson slammed hardline unionists whom he said would reject a deal “even if the government gave them everything they needed with bells and whistles attached because they want to bring down the assembly”.

Robinson, who keeps a low profile but spoke out this week as he promoted his new book on insults and political put-downs, told unionists that they “really are dreaming” if they hold out until after the UK general election expected next year.

“What happens now if there’s no satisfactory deal? Unionists would not engage further with this government and would sit and wait till the next government comes in. They will discover that it is not more helpful than the Conservative government was,” he said.

No alternatives put forward so far for restoring Stormont have convinced unionists, who now enjoy neither a political or demographic majority in Northern Ireland.

If the executive is not restored, Dublin wants more say in running the region. He warned the DUP that with public services crumbling and a budget crisis, it could lose support with the “soft centre” of unionism starting to “look at [political] alternatives”, Robinson said.

Deirdre Heenan, professor of social policy at the University of Ulster, said Robinson’s intervention appeared “clearly choreographed” while Alex Kane, former Ulster Unionist Party spokesman, said it appeared “the DUP and government are now at the waltzing together stage”.

But Donaldson has a reputation as a cautious leader. “The longer he dithers, the weaker he is,” said Heenan.

“Is his legacy going to be ‘Dithering Donaldson’?’”