May’s gamble lets the North know exactly where it stands in Westminster

The calling of a snap election in Britain has scattered the North’s power-sharing talks to the four winds

Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill speaks to the press after her meeting with Northern Ireland Secretary of State James Brokenshire as power-sharing talks stalled last week Press Eye

Had it not been for British prime minister Theresa May’s decision to call a snap general election last week, there might well have been a deal on restoring power-sharing in Northern Ireland within the next fortnight, according to some of those involved in the talks.

Progress had been made over Easter, leading to a belief that as the now-irrelevant May 2 deadline approached, an agreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP was “eminently ...