Sinn Féin hails historic shift as Stormont looks set to reconvene

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Nearly two years of political paralysis in Northern Ireland looked set to end by Saturday after the UK government presented a series of proposals to revamp Brexit trade rules and cement the region’s ties to Britain.

The measures, detailed in a 76-page command paper entitled “Safeguarding the Union”, addressed bitter unionist divisions that prompted the collapse of the Stormont power-sharing executive.

Legislation to enact the proposals, which include scrapping customs checks on goods travelling from Britain to Northern Ireland that remain in the region, is due to be fast-tracked in Westminster on Thursday.

On that basis, Stormont is expected to reconvene on Saturday to elect a Speaker as well as first and deputy first ministers and ministerial positions.

Stormont has not met since 2022 when the Democratic Unionist Party began boycotting the institutions in protest at post-Brexit trade rules that it said hurt Northern Ireland’s place in the UK and ability to trade with Britain.

As soon as Stormont returns, London has promised to unlock a £3.3bn aid package to address the region’s public finances and services crises, which have spiralled during the two years of political limbo.

Stormont’s revival will come with a historic shift: for the first time in a region created by the partition of Ireland over a century ago for the then protestant unionist majority, the first minister’s post will be held by a nationalist.

Michelle O’Neill, first minister designate from the pro-Irish unity Sinn Féin party, which is now the biggest on both sides of the Irish border, said the moment underscored “the change that’s happening across the island”.

The proposals presented to Westminster on Wednesday, the fourth anniversary of Brexit, were designed to reassure unionists that Northern Ireland had not been cut adrift from the rest of the UK.

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