Stopping the clock has sometimes been a useful device for meeting the most intractable deadlines in Northern Irish politics. But the clock is currently ticking unceasingly towards two important dates, neither of them many weeks distant now, where stopping it will not be an option for Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary. Mr Heaton-Harris is in a race against time, with major implications not just for Northern Ireland but for Britain.
The two dates in question are the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement on 10 April and the legal obligation to call fresh assembly elections if there is no power-sharing agreement between the Northern Irish parties before 13 April. The dates are not formally linked. Yet each has powerful potential to expose the current fragility of the 1998 power-sharing agreement in the light of divisions caused by the Northern Ireland protocol of the Brexit deal between Britain and the European Union.
