Britain Freezes N. Ireland Government Again

Britain used a legal loophole Friday to temporarily rescue Northern Ireland’s crumbling government and give politicians six more weeks to resolve their arguments over Irish Republican Army disarmament.

John Reid, Britain’s secretary for Northern Ireland, signed an order to suspend the powers of the province’s power-sharing government at midnight. It is the second time the loophole has been invoked to stave off the Roman Catholic-Protestant government’s collapse.

The move’s effect was to cancel a deadline today for the four-party coalition to elect a new Protestant leader to replace Ulster Unionist head David Trimble, who resigned as first minister in July over the arms issue.

But Protestant lawmakers say they won’t vote for a new leader by the new Nov. 3 deadline either, unless the IRA disarms as the 1998 Good Friday peace accord intended.

Reid said the outlawed group’s commanders had a new opportunity to save the coalition, which includes the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party.

“I do not know whether they will take it. My fervent hope is that they can and will,” Reid said in a statement.

Reid, who issued a one-day suspension Aug. 11, said he wouldn’t do it a third time. He said the government’s survival now depended on whether the IRA fulfilled its pledge to begin disarming.

If there is no breakthrough by Nov. 3, Reid said, he would have to either return Northern Ireland to direct British control indefinitely or let the local government collapse, then order new elections that would probably produce gains for the most hard-line parties on each side.

Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, said the British government’s decision “has made a bad situation worse.”