Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Northern Ireland: DUP climbdown fails to end crisis

BRITAIN’S Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire said yesterday that snap elections to the Stormont assembly are still likely despite unionists trying to buy their way out of the crisis.

He spoke after Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Communities Minister Paul Givan reversed his cut to a £50,000 bursary scheme for children to visit the Irish-speaking regions of Ireland.

The outgoing deputy first minister, Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, accused the DUP of “crude and crass bigotry” towards Irish-speakers in his resignation on Monday, which was prompted by DUP First Minister Arlene Foster’s refusal to quit over the £490 million Renewable Heat Incentive fiasco.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Then Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams (centre) with Cuban Leader President Fidel Castro (right) at the opening of a school in Havana, December 2001
Cuba / 13 August 2026
13 August 2026

JOE DWYER of Sinn Fein reflects on the links between the Irish and Cuban struggles for independence and on Castro’s personal engagement with the cause of Irish freedom

FINDING COMMON CAUSE: Supporters of the Irish rap group Kneecap outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London with London Irish Brigade solidarity placards for Mo Chara
Ireland / 9 March 2026
9 March 2026

AARON SMITH discusses why the Protestant diaspora are still part of Yeats’s ‘Indomitable Irishry’, and an integral part of any future united Ireland.

ALL IN A GOOD CAUSE: The statue of James Connolly in Dublin, designed by the sculptor Eamonn O'Doherty unveiled in 1996 was commissioned by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) / Pic: William Murphy/CC
Features / 30 October 2025
30 October 2025

A new group within the NEU is preparing the labour movement for a conversation on Irish unity by arguing that true liberation must be rooted in working-class solidarity and anti-sectarianism, writes ROBERT POOLE