James Brokenshire can achieve a NI deal – if he plays the direct rule card

Talks to form a new power sharing executive in Belfast have broken down again. Largely this is because James Brokenshire, the Northern Ireland Secretary, has been unable to impose a believable deadline after which he would enforce direct rule. This is a particular shame, because shaking the magic money tree in the direction of Northern Ireland could, with some skilful diplomacy, have the effect of resetting Stormont talks.

From the collapse of the power sharing executive in January, up until last week’s Confidence and Supply Agreement between Arlene Foster’s DUP and Theresa May’s Conservatives, Sinn Féin briefly held all the cards. It could sit back as the institutions collapsed, blame the DUP’s (chiefly Foster’s) intransigence, and hint to voters that if things got truly bad, their best hopes for the future lay in a border poll, and unification with the south.