Britain to push back N.Ireland election deadline to March - source

Britain will announce on Wednesday it intends to push back a deadline to hold a new election in Northern Ireland by six weeks to early March with the option of extending it by a further six weeks, a source briefed on the plan told Reuters.

Britain's minister for Northern Ireland, Chris Heaton-Harris, said on Friday he would not call another election before the end of the year and would outline in parliament how he intended to proceed beyond that later on Wednesday.

Northern Ireland has been without a functioning devolved government since February when the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party began a boycott of the regional assembly in protest at post-Brexit trading arrangements.