Northern Ireland political party agrees to end 2-year boycott

London, Jan. 31: Northern Ireland's largest British unionist party has agreed to end a boycott that left the region's people without a power-sharing administration for two years and rattled the foundations of the 25-year-old peace. The breakthrough could see the shuttered Belfast government restored within days.

After a marathon late-night meeting, Democratic Unionist Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson said Tuesday that the party's executive had backed proposals to return to the government. He said agreements reached with the U.K. government in London "provide a basis for our party to nominate members to the Northern Ireland Executive, thus seeing the restoration of the locally elected institutions."

The breakthrough came after the U.K. government last week gave Northern Ireland politicians until Feb. 8 to restore the Northern Ireland Assembly and executive or face new elections.

"All the conditions are in place for the Assembly to return," Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said. "The parties entitled to form an executive are meeting today to discuss these matters, and I hope to be able to finalize this deal with the political parties as soon as possible."

The DUP walked out in February 2022 in a dispute over post-Brexit trade rules. Ever since, it has refused to return to the government with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein. Under power-sharing rules established as part of Northern Ireland's peace process, the administration must include both British unionists and Irish nationalists.

The walkout left Northern Ireland's 1.9 million people without a functioning administration to make key decisions as the cost of living soared and backlogs strained the creaking public health system. Amid mounting public frustration, teachers, nurses and other public sector workers staged a 24-hour strike this month calling on politicians to return to the government and give them a long-delayed pay raise.

The British government has agreed to give Northern Ireland more than 3 billion pounds ($3.8 billion) for its public services, but only if the executive in Belfast gets back up and running.

The political impasse in Northern Ireland stems from the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union and its borderless trading bloc after decades of membership. The DUP quit the government in opposition to new trade rules put in place after the U.K. left the EU in 2020 that imposed customs checks and other hurdles on goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.

The checks were imposed to maintain an open border between the north and its EU neighbor, the Republic of Ireland, a key pillar of the peace process that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland. 

The DUP, though, says the new east-west customs border undermines Northern Ireland's place in the U.K.