Northern Ireland is set to enter a new lockdown on St Stephen’s Day, of which the first week will be the toughest so far imposed in the region. File photograph:  Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Concern has been expressed around the potential effect of a new variant strain of coronavirus spreading in Northern Ireland. The first positive case(...)

Sinn Féin leader  Mary Lou McDonald: “I think it’s much healthier to involve people, to report back to them, to take people’s questions, to listen to them, to listen to people’s ideas.” Photograph:  Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said the idea that public meetings held by her party are “an affront to democracy” is “ridiculous”. An estimat(...)

Conor  Murphy said the ‘DUP/Tory pact’ was ‘the biggest single opposition to the restoration of the institutions’

The restoration of the North’s power-sharing Assembly is still possible, the Sinn Féin MLA Conor Murphy has told the party’s ardfheis. Speaking to d(...)

DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the UK government needed to translate “verbal commitments” on the backstop  into “law”. Photograph: Reuters/Paul McErlane

DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said his party still needs legal assurances on the backstop to support Theresa May’s deal. Mr Donaldson said he and (...)

Michelle O’Neill: ‘The EU has shown considerable patience and a willingness to facilitate a Brexit agreement that enables Britain to leave the EU without creating a hard border.’ Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

Sinn Féin deputy leader Michelle O’Neill has accused the DUP of being “hell-bent” on pursuing a reckless and blinkered Brexit strategy that is “drivin(...)

UK prime minister Theresa May addresses the House of Common. Photograph: PA Wire

Theresa May has told MPs that Brexit negotiations stalled on Sunday because the European Union insisted there should be a Northern Ireland-only backst(...)

Ian Paisley will be excluded from the House of Commons for 30 sitting days from September 4th following a major breach of parliamentary rules.

Ian Paisley has become the first MP to face the prospect of a recall by-election after the House of Commons voted to suspend him for 30 days because h(...)

Michelle O’Neill (L) says it took Theresa May two years to work out Brexit path and ‘just two weeks to scupper her plan to placate her own backbenchers and the DUP’. File photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

The Government must now seek “cast iron guarantees” on the Brexit backstop following following Monday night’s vote in Westminster, Sinn Féin has said.(...)

SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood: “We are likely to see a very soft Brexit.” Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Progress on the Brexit deal was given a qualified welcome by parties in Northern Ireland on Friday. The DUP, whose intervention led to the collapse o(...)