Northern Ireland’s Martin McGuinness resigns as Deputy First Minister

True to form, Belfast is once more mired in a January crisis.

If they fail to do so, Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire has said that he will have no choice but to call a snap election.

After a decade of bitter compromises over paramilitaries and policing, Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government finally fell apart this week over the abuse by farmers of a green-energy grant to burn fuels such as wood pellets instead of coal. “Simon will, later this week, have more to say on both transparency and cost controls”. At the core are fundamental questions about whether nationalists and unionists can work together in a devolved government.

Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has resigned in protest over the handling of the “Cash for Ash” Renewable Heating Initiative (RHI) scandal that is due to cost taxpayers £490 million ($595 million).

But Ms Foster suggested Sinn Fein would be hypocrites if they reject the new inquiry, now that she was no longer First Minister.

– Sterling dropped to its lowest level since October amid market fears that Theresa May is leading Britain to an uncertain future outside the single market, forcing the British prime minister to deny the United Kingdom was heading for a “hard Brexit”, the paper’s lead story says.

“I regret the circumstances which have led to the decision of Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness to resign his office”.

Sinn Féin have been accused of wanting to put more soldiers and security personnel from the Troubles in the dock, by the DUP. McGuinness has said that the party will not do so.

But Brexit’s impact could go much deeper, shifting the constitutional architecture on which Northern Ireland’s peace deal sits.

UK Government sources indicated that elections could be held in the second half of March.

“A significant part of this island will have nobody representing it in the Brexit negotiations”.

It is expected the power-sharing executive will now be dissolved with elections to take place within six weeks.

Foster survived a vote of no confidence at an emergency meeting of the Northern Ireland Assembly shortly before Christmas.

Meanwhile, the Republic of Ireland’s European Union agriculture commissioner, Phil Hogan, said Brexit could mean a “hard” border between the north and the south of the island, if the United Kingdom left the single market. Mrs Foster also oversaw its operation for nearly three years as Minister for Enterprise, Trade, and Investment.

She warned failure to do so could result in “the permanent collapse of the political institutions”.

But Foster has been clear that she won’t step aside and it is hard to imagine that the DUP will want to let Sinn Fein, in effect, remove its party leader. Her most important job has been, and will remain, that of a wife, mother and daughter.’ past year, the DUP MLA Jim Wells was caught on mic in a Public Accounts Committee session joking: ‘I am brilliant with women under the age of eight and great with those over the age of eighty – it’s the ones in between I can’t cope with’.

The Executive is led by the First Minister, who is nominated by the largest party, and the deputy First Minister, who is nominated by the second largest party.

There is one way that elections could be avoided. This is not about whether we can afford Irish Unity; we can no longer afford partition. This is about the Good Friday Agreement, this is about shared collective government The DUP didn’t negotiate the Good Friday Agreement. A whistleblower a year ago alleged that one farmer installed boilers to heat empty barns, which will make him a tidy £1M.