The Irish Times view on Stormont: grasping the opportunity

The Stormont Executive received a welcome and unexpected recent boost in the first budget delivered by a Labour government in 14 years. Rachel Reeves, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a record £18.2 billion funding package for Northern Ireland for the period 2025/26.
Health, education, and other state-delivered services have come under increasing pressure in Northern Ireland in recent years through a combination of cutbacks and political stasis. The previous Conservative government introduced a series of real spending cuts in the North as well as across the rest of the UK. This pressure was compounded in Northern Ireland because the Stormont Executive did not operate for a total of six years between the Brexit referendum in 2016 and earlier this year.
Mistrust across the political divide has intensified since Brexit with both sides believing the other is not fully committed to making Northern Ireland work as an economic entity. But whatever the longer-term constitutional issues, politics should be about improving people’s lives. And there are now opportunities to make progress.
The UK Conservative government cynically used the North as a pawn in Brexit negotiations with the EU. Labour has been in power since July and so far it has taken a different approach. As well as the budget delivered by Reeves, Hilary Benn, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, has constructively engaged with all sides.
It is incumbent on all political parties in Northern Ireland to work with Westminster to ensure that Northern Ireland delivers on its potential. Calls for a Border Poll have gathered momentum since Brexit. In turn this has put much of Unionism on the defensive. But there is an opportunity now for Northern Ireland with a new government in Westminster and the terms of the Windsor Agreement offering some economic opportunity. The parties in Stormont should take advantage of this – and in this spirit should support the renewal of the Windsor Framework trade terms in a vote later this month.