Northern Ireland’s new government puts on a show of unity

A surreal atmosphereDUPDUP prevails at Stormont, the hill overlooking Belfast which is home to Northern Ireland’s devolved administration. It is not the return of a power-sharing government that has people scratching their heads; it is how that government’s leaders are behaving. Imagine Joe Biden and Donald Trump suddenly working together in harmony, and you have a sense of the strangeness.The government was restored in February, after a two-year hiatus following a walkout by the main unionist (pro-British) party, the Democratic Unionist Party (). The had objected to the customs and regulatory border established in the Irish Sea after Brexit, which ensured that the land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland remained open. It when the sea border was softened.