For nine months following the elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly in May 2022, nothing much changed in Northern Ireland. Then on 27 February 2023 the sleeping giant awoke. On that day the British prime minister Rishi Sunak and the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen jointly announced they had agreed to resolve their differences over the Northern Ireland Protocol. The terms of their agreement are contained in the Windsor Framework, a complex set of legal documents.

What is the stalemate at Stormont?

For two years the dispute over the protocol had adversely affected relations between the EU and the UK. It also infected politics in NI to the extent that devolved government there collapsed. The dispute involves two kinds of issues: practical and constitutional. The Windsor Framework seems to have resolved the practical issues to the satisfaction of most interested parties. But it is the constitutional issues that are the most critical and the most difficult to resolve. NI unionists regard them of overriding concern.

As explained in an earlier article, Sinn Féin emerged from the elections with the most seats in the assembly. As such, it has the right to nominate the First Minister. However, the new assembly has never met and a new Executive has not been formed. Thus the stalemate at Stormont continues, it having begun three months earlier when the Democratic Unionist Party pulled out of the Executive in protest over the protocol.

Does the Windsor Framework do enough to break the impasse?

In two recent articles, I examine the Windsor Framework and its likely effect on UK and NI politics as well as explaining the background to it. The ball is now back in the DUP’s court. They do not need to approve the Windsor Framework for it to go ahead. However, politically it is critical as it would end the stalemate at Stormont and help draw a line under the recent fractious past.

Links to my articles on Ireland and Brexit and on the 2022 Northern Ireland elections:

Ireland and Brexit: the Good News (30 December 2020)
Ireland and Brexit: Time to NIxit? – Part 1: A Question of Identity (8 January 2021)
Ireland and Brexit: Time to NIxit? – Part 2: The Economy, Stupid (9 January 2021)
Northern Ireland deja vu: They’re burning buses again (16 April 2021)
Bumbling Boris’ Brexit bombast, a bitter brew for Northern Ireland (21 June 2021)
Stalemate at Stormont – elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly (30 April 2022)
Who won the elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly? (8 June 2022)
The never-ending Brexit story – an end perhaps? (1 March 2023)
The Windsor framework: oven-ready fudge (4 March 2023)