Martin McGuinness: resigning now… retiring too?

On one level, this is a moment of normalisation in Northern Ireland politics. The institutions are in crisis and it is not because of a peace process issue. Instead it is a scandal about a government renewable heating programme that was out of control and questions over what the DUP First Minister Arlene Foster knew and when.

But the continuing fallout from decades of violence is work in progress still and a political crisis, whatever triggers it, is bound to set back efforts to resolve issues like historical crimes and how they should be uncovered.

Anyone watching Martin McGuinness’s statement in the last hour will have realised that he is not in the very best of health. It’s not known what exactly his condition is but if elections do now come early to Northern Ireland, he may not be a candidate to return to Stormont. Sinn Fein’s leadership could be about to change.

Mr McGuinness and Gerry Adams have long been minded to go off into the sunset together and hand the leadership of Sinn Fein to a new generation, but it was thought this was something they planned for later this year or the year after. That handover process could now be accelerated and Republicans could be looking at a new chapter in their leadership.

There’s a chance an election produces a drastically different Stormont but you wouldn’t put it higher than that. Much of Northern Ireland politics is still what one MP calls “a sectarian head count.”

It may be that the DUP unseats its own leader, Arlene Foster, in the seven days’ grace before an election could be called. But the DUP won’t want to look like it’s being pushed around by Sinn Fein so that doesn’t look highly likely.

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