Return to direct rule ‘unacceptable’ if DUP collapses assembly - Varadkar

Former Stormont first minister Peter Robinson has urged the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to “keep your head” as the North lurches towards fresh elections days before Christmas over the party’s refusal to form an Executive.

As the Assembly reconvenes on Thursday in an almost certainly doomed bid to restore power-sharing as the clock ticks towards a midnight deadline for the calling of a new poll, the former DUP leader launched a series of broadsides at the British government, nationalists, the Ulster Unionists, the centrist Alliance Party and the media.

In Dublin, however, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar echoed remarks by Taoiseach Micheál Martin that there cannot be a return to the direct rule arrangements of the past.

Mr Varadkar said it was “regrettable” that a fresh election may happen in Northern Ireland because the DUP had decided not to participate in power-sharing.

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He also said: “I would echo and endorse the comments of the Taoiseach yesterday that if it’s not possible to get an Executive up and running in the medium to long term, we can’t have a return to the direct rule arrangements of the past. It wouldn’t be acceptable.

“Things have moved on so much in Northern Ireland and that’s something we’ll be conveying very clearly to the British government and the Taoiseach has done that already.”

On the possible outcome of an election Mr Varadkar said: “As things look today, the result will be much the same as it was in the last election with no clear majority for unionists combined or nationalists combined – probably Sinn Féin the largest party again.”

Speaking at a press event in Dublin on Thursday morning, he added: “I think there will be a clear majority of MLAs who don’t want the [Northern Ireland] protocol scrapped… and that has to be taken into account.

“But you can never predict for sure what’s going to happen in any election.”

Asked if he had a message for the DUP he said the message he has for all parties, particularly the DUP, is: “You get elected by people who come out on election day and put a number or an X beside your name because they want you to be in Government. They want you to make decisions.”

In a message on Facebook urging the DUP to stand firm, Mr Robinson said: “Let me see, have I got this right? Sinn Féin, who refuse to sit at Westminster are attacking the DUP for not sitting in Stormont.

“The government who refuses to call a general election to gain a mandate is insisting the Northern Ireland Assembly should have an election.

“The Alliance Party want to activate Stormont without the DUP, though it never wanted such an outcome when republicans stayed out of the Executive for three years.”

Turning on the media as well, Mr Robinson accused it of insisting the DUP “break its manifesto commitment of awaiting the resolution of the (Northern Ireland) protocol issue before entering a new Executive.”

Mr Robinson urged his party to stand firm amid the mounting pressure to agree a power-sharing Executive after May’s polls, in which Sinn Féin were returned as the largest party in the North.

“To my colleagues in the DUP – continue to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs. You haven’t come this far, to only come this far,” he said.

Mr Robinson’s comments came as a new poll carried out for Queen’s University Belfast shows a majority of voters in the North want to see the Stormont Executive back up and running regardless of outstanding issues over the Northern Ireland protocol.

Roughly three in ten people believe the power-sharing administration should not be restored until the post-Brexit trading arrangement is scrapped altogether, while more than twice that many (66 per cent) want an Executive formed immediately.

The latest Lucid Talk poll, for Queen’s, was carried out between October 7th and 10th, and was published Thursday, a day before the deadline for fresh elections being called in the absence of a functioning Executive.

The Northern Ireland Assembly meets at noon - 12 hours before the deadline - in an unlikely attempt to form an Executive, as the DUP insists it will continue to block an administration until its demands over the protocol are met.

The protocol was brokered by Britain and the EU as a result of Brexit to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland, but some unionists say it undermines the North’s place in the UK by establishing a de-facto border for goods in the Irish Sea.

Britain’s Northern secretary Chris Heaton Harris has said he will call an election - which the North’s chief electoral officer said will cost more than £6.5 million - if there is no agreement by Friday.

The poll also found a majority (53 per cent) of voters in the North view the protocol as positive for the economy, with an even greater proportion (63 per cent) believing it offers the region unique opportunities to benefit the economy.

A majority (59 per cent) is also opposed to the British government taking unilateral action to suspend elements of the protocol, as allowed for under the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol Bill advancing its way through Westminster.

Almost three-quarters (71 per cent) think that a negotiated settlement on outstanding issues between London and Brussels is the best way forward.

Trust in the Irish Government has grown over recent polls. The DUP is the most distrusted political party over the issue (67 per cent) followed by Sinn Féin (51 per cent). The SDLP and Alliance Party are the most trusted parties.

Professor David Phinnemore, of Queen’s, who is leading the research into the protocol, said although there is a “significant minority resolutely opposed to the protocol, a majority of voters continue to see either actual or potential benefits and would much prefer outstanding issues between the UK and the EU to be resolved through agreement as opposed to unilateral action by the UK government.”

Professor Katy Hayward, who is also working on the research project, said the findings that just three in 10 voters want the protocol scrapped before an Executive is established “shows quite how influential the political parties are” in the North despite being widely distrusted on the issue.

“This points to the difficulty for the UK and the EU in finding consensus in Northern Ireland for accepting any agreement they might come to on the protocol, and the subsequent obvious difficulties for power-sharing,” she added.