Compared with the contests in the rest of the UK or in France, the one in Northern Ireland may seem like this week’s electoral sideshow. Devolved government there has finally been resumed. The Brexit protests have died down. And there are only 18 seats in Northern Ireland anyway, out of Westminster’s 650. The chance of the Northern Ireland results affecting the post-election balance of power, as they did in 2017, are vanishingly small this time.
All true. Yet the election in Northern Ireland matters all the same. It matters for Northern Ireland’s people, of course, not least because one in four of them are on an NHS treatment waiting list, a higher figure than in most of Britain. It matters too because, although the devolved institutions have resumed operation, there is too little by way of creative, cross-community, cooperative government to show for it. And it matters because, at least among unionists, the wounds of Brexit have not been fully healed.
