The Stormont Assembly has failed to elect a new speaker just hours ahead of a deadline for fresh elections.
MLAs were recalled for a special sitting with the first order of business being electing a new speaker, SDLP MLA Matthew O’Toole nominated his party colleague Patsy McGlone, while UUP leader Doug Beattie nominated his party colleague Mike Nesbitt for the position.
The two nominations failed to secure the necessary cross-community support from MLAs.
The plenary session of the Assembly was then suspended as business cannot be carried out without a speaker.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earlier urged the DUP to get back to Stormont.
His official spokesman said: “There’s still time for the DUP and executives to get back to Stormont and we urge them to do so because the people of Northern Ireland deserve a fully functioning and locally elected executive which can respond to the issues facing the communities there.
“That was the Northern Ireland Secretary’s message to all party leaders when they met yesterday but clearly the Northern Ireland Secretary has a statutory duty.”
However, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said his party did not nominate ministers because not enough progress has been made on addressing issues of concern around the Northern Ireland Protocol.
“We were given a clear mandate in the Assembly elections, and we would not nominate ministers to an executive until decisive action is taken on the protocol to remove the barriers to trade within our own country and to restore our place within the United Kingdom internal market,” he said.
“That remains our position and so today we will not be supporting the nomination of ministers to the executive.”
He also warned that unionists will not accept a joint authority arrangement between the British and Irish governments instead of direct rule from London in the absence of the Stormont Assembly.
“Unionists will not accept joint authority. Joint authority would be an abandonment of the Good Friday Agreement and if that’s what the Irish government want to do, then let them be honest and say,” he said.
Speaking in the chamber, Sinn Fein Stormont leader Michelle O’Neill said the DUP “have left us all at the mercy of a heartless and dysfunctional Tory government”.
Ms O’Neill claimed those watching today’s proceedings in the Northern Ireland Assembly will be “bewildered”.
“Most of us here want to do the job we were elected to do,” she said.
“Today our caretaker ministers rally to take decisions, within tight limits, before their civil servants are left in an impossible position come midnight where they are expected to run our essential public services yet have no budget and no powers.”
DUP MLA Paul Givan described today’s recall of the assembly as a “flawed and failed attempt of forming an executive”.
He contended the unionist mandate has been “disrespected”, and said powersharing has to be “about consent”, “not contempt”.
“The DUP supports devolution. We are ready to appoint ministers today. The barrier to devolution is not the DUP. It is the Northern Ireland Protocol,” he told MLAs.
Time is running out, and people in Northern Ireland deserve locally elected decision-makers and an executive who can respond to the issues
