Northern Ireland St Andrews Agreement deadline

Today, November 10th, is the deadline for Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party to commit to the St Andrews Agreements drafted last month to decide on the future governance of Northern Ireland . The journalist David Adams is pessimistic. "Neither of the two main parties has any intention of giving a definitive response today. Nor is there any likelihood that the British government will carry out its threat to close the Assembly. Instead, what we will get is more obfuscation and another government climbdown. Such deadlines mean nothing to the political parties, and little wonder. They have been allowed, without censure, to disregard so many in the past we can hardly expect them to treat one seriously now. ... Solutions have not been found to the problems around powersharing, support for policing and a timetable for the devolution of policing and justice; they have merely been pushed a little further down the line."

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