Northern Ireland is set to hold a snap election, months after the last assembly election, after the deadline passed to form a functioning parliament and a government.
It comes after a last-ditch effort to restore the Northern Ireland Assembly and to produce a Northern Ireland Executive failed on Thursday owning to the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) refusal to participate.
Chris Heaton-Harris, the UK central government’s Northern Ireland secretary, confirmed on Friday that he is “going to be calling an election.”
Heaton-Harris was widely expected to set a date for the election on Friday, but instead, he told reporters in Belfast that he will talk to Northern Ireland’s party leaders next week, adding, “But I will be calling an election” because “I am legally bound to do so.”…