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Northern Ireland government on brink of collapse Northern Ireland's first minister Peter Robinson resigns
(35 minutes later)
Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government is on the brink of collapse after the Democratic Unionists failed to win enough support to adjourn the Stormont assembly. Northern Ireland’s first minister has resigned with the region’s power-sharing government on the brink of collapse over police allegations that the IRA still exists.
Unless the prime minister, David Cameron – who No 10 said was “gravely concerned” about the situation – exercises powers to adjourn the regional parliament, the DUP has said it will quit the coalition government. Peter Robinson’s announcement came after his Democratic Unionist party, the largest in the Stormont assembly, was defeated in a vote to suspend the assembly for emergency talks to take place.
Robinson will be replaced as temporary first minister by his DUP colleague Arlene Foster, he said on Thursday, and most of the party’s ministers would also resign.
Robinson had given an ultimatum that unless the UK prime minister, David Cameron, uses executive powers to adjourn business at the Northern Ireland assembly, the Democratic Unionist party will withdraw from the executive in Belfast.
Related: Northern Ireland's political crisis: the key questions answeredRelated: Northern Ireland's political crisis: the key questions answered
Northern Ireland’s first minister and DUP leader, Peter Robinson, warned on Wednesday that only an adjournment – to allow emergency talks to take place over police claims that the IRA still exists – would stop him pulling his ministers out of the coalition in Belfast. Earlier on Thursday the DUP failed to win enough votes in the parliament’s business committee to adjourn the workings of the assembly. Robinson wanted an adjournment to allow for only emergency talks to take place over allegations that the IRA still exists and had killed its one time member Kevin McGuigan.
But on Thursday Robinson and the DUP failed to persuade the smaller nationalist party, the SDLP, to back their adjournment motion. Robinson warned that it could not be “business as usual” at Stormont while these discussions were to take place.
The DUP and the Ulster Unionist party are protesting over police claims that individual IRA members killed their former comrade Kevin McGuigan in Belfast last month. But crucially the smaller nationalist party, the SDLP, refused to back the DUP motion on adjournment even though the cross-community Alliance party supported it.
The unionists say the IRA’s continued existence and allegations that they are still in the business of killing enemies is a major breach of an agreement nearly a decade ago that led to power sharing with Sinn Féin. A Downing Street spokeswoman said the prime minister was gravely concerned about the worsening political crisis at Stormont and would call Robinson and the Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, to discuss developments.
Downing Street said Cameron was “gravely concerned” about the situation and was phoning Robinson and the Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers to discuss developments. Asked if he was considering powers to suspend the assembly, the prime minister’s spokeswoman said: “There are obviously now different people calling for different things, and the prime minister’s calls with the secretary of state and the first minister are an opportunity for us to consider what steps should be taken next.”
Cameron’s official spokeswoman said: “The prime minister is gravely concerned about the situation. As he was saying in the House [of Commons] yesterday, we want to see all politicians in Northern Ireland working together to build a better future for the country and working to fulfil its great potential. The SDLP resisted pressure from the Irish premier during a meeting in Dublin in which Taoiseach Enda Kenny urged the northern nationalist party to support adjournment as a means of saving devolution in Northern Ireland.
“We have been encouraging talks between the parties so they can work through their issues.” The SDLP leader, Alasdair McDonnell, said: “Adjournment would not have added anything, an adjournment would have been there and when the adjournment was over we would still have been drifting toward suspension. The adjournment was not the solution and we looked at this long and hard.”
Asked whether the PM was considering suspending the assembly, the spokeswoman said: “There are obviously now different people calling for different things, and the prime minister’s calls with the secretary of state and the first minister are an opportunity for us to consider what steps should be taken next.” The Alliance party leader, David Ford, later accused the SDLP of betraying the peace process for the sake of its party’s electoral competition with Sinn Féin.
The Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said: “The decision of the [assembly’s] business committee is a very, very clear democratic reiteration of the integrity of these institutions and of the need and the wish for these institutions to continue the work which we were all elected to do on behalf of citizens in this state and across this island.” “John Hume and David Trimble (former SDLP and UUP leaders) sacrificed their parties for the sake of the peace process,” he said. “Today the current leadership of the Ulster Unionists and SDLP has sacrificed the peace process. For what?”
Robinson issued his ultimatum on Wednesday after the arrest of three senior republicans, including Sinn Fein’s northern chairman Bobby Storey, over McGuigan’s murder. The men remain in custody. The Ulster Unionist party had also refused to adjourn Stormont business but had already pulled out of the power-sharing government.
Police have said current members of the IRA were involved in last month’s shooting of McGuigan in a suspected revenge attack for the murder of former IRA commander Gerard “Jock” Davison in Belfast three months earlier. The DUP leadership is now expected to instruct its ministers to leave the four-party power-sharing coalition, bringing down a historic political compromise that took almost two decades of tortuous negotiations to create.
The revelations about the IRA have heaped pressure on Sinn Féin to explain why the supposedly defunct paramilitary organisation is still in existence. Their move has been prompted by the assessment of George Hamilton, the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, that members of the IRA killed Kevin McGuigan in a revenge murder in August, and that the republican paramilitary group still maintains a structure.
The Executive cannot function without the DUP, the region’s largest unionist party. However, if the party resigns its ministerial posts the institutions will not fall immediately, as the party will be given seven days to renominate ministers. Sinn Féin leaders insist the IRA has gone away and “left the stage”, but few unionists believe that and trust has broken down between the two main power blocs.
If no renominations materialise then the power-sharing Executive will collapse, prompting the prospect of snap elections or a lengthy spell of direct rule. Gerry Adams, the Sinn Féin president, made a late appeal to the DUP not to pull out and trigger the collapse of the power-sharing devolved institutions.
The Ulster Unionists have already resigned from the Executive, claiming trust in Sinn Fein has been destroyed, but unlike the DUP they did not have the electoral weight to bring the institutions down by leaving them. Adams said: “The decision of the [assembly’s] business committee is a very, very clear democratic reiteration of the integrity of these institutions and of the need and the wish for these institutions to continue the work which we were all elected to do on behalf of citizens in this state and across this island.”
Later his party colleague and deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, added his voice to calls for the DUP not to pull the plug on power sharing. McGuinness denounced those behind McGuigan’s murder and the earlier killing in May of another ex-IRA man, Gerard ‘Jock’ Davison, describing them as criminals.
However, McGuigan’s family and other republican sources in Belfast insist it was mainstream members of the Provisional IRA who killed the father of nine.
The prime minister now has to weigh up if he can introduce legislation at Westminster which would give him powers to suspend devolution in Northern Ireland. If he does not, the DUP are almost certain to pull out of the regional government on Thursday night.