London shows a zeal to get abortions in Northern Ireland, yet it did nothing when Sinn Fein blocked Stormont

When it comes to making it much easier to abort foetuses, Westminster in 2019 acted with determination because Stormont was down.

Now that Stormont is back up, the need to hasten the terminating of unborn lives has again prompted a sense of determination and resolve in London

The secretary of state, Brandon Lewis, has stepped in because abortions, while they are often now happening in NI, are not being provided to the extent that they should be under the radically liberalised new laws.

Urged on to act by MPs from Labour’s Stella Creasy to the leader of the once fiercely anti abortion SDLP, Colum Eastwood, Mr Lewis made clear that he shared their concerns.

He spoke about the rights of “women and girls” to “high-quality” care around terminations (note the soft language, as if aborting a foetus is akin to other forms of healthcare).

The UK government says it is only upholding the law as it has been passed. But consider the zeal with which MPs moved to impose abortion when devolution was down because of Sinn Fein. A Conservative and Unionist government did nothing at all to penalise republicans for collapsing Stormont in 2017. In fact it did not even criticise them for doing so.

While Irish ministers led by Simon Coveney incessantly called for Stormont to be restored (ie SF demands be granted), no UK minister in three years dared to say a word against the blackmail of keeping Stormont down until the long-term republican goal of an Irish language act was agreed.

In fact the most explicit criticism of a local political party came in late 2019, when Julian Smith joined Mr Coveney in singling out the DUP as an obstacle to the return of Stormont.

Amid these double standards from London, and the refusal of republicans to accept a centenary stone (in opposition to which that key unionist leader Jim Allister has now been suspended from speaking as MLA), no wonder unionists are thinking about declining to acquiesce in a language act.

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