DUP Stormont: Jim Wells says MLAs keen to return but Westminster team sees 'enormous' danger of Windsor Framework and Protocol

Mr Wells said yesterday there was a clear contrast of views among the party's MLAs and Westminster team on when to go back into Stormont. The party is currently vetoing the Stormont government in protest at the Windsor Framework.

Speaking on BBC Talkback yesterday, Mr Wells was asked who he believed was really running the DUP and whether it was Jeffrey Donaldson, Lord Nigel Dodds or Dodds plus East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson?

He replied: "It is a well known fact that the majority of DUP MLAs at Stormont would get back into government in the morning. There are only six or seven [out of 25] who would bitterly oppose that. But it's a very different picture as far as Westminster is concerned, where there is a clear majority of people who are at the cutting edge of the Windsor framework and the protocol, who see what's going on.

"And they see the inherent dangers, the enormous dangers to Northern Ireland's constitutional position, if we go ahead... and walk back into Stormont with the sword of Damocles - the protocol - hanging over our necks."

He said that the solution to the suspensions of Stormont was voluntary coalition.

"I think unless there's radical reform, there is no hope for Stormont. I was over 24 years there and it lurched from one crisis to another - within it is the inherent problem of the mandatory coalition.

"You're forcing five parties who are diametrically opposed to each other - with completely different policies - by law to have a mandatory coalition.”

He added: “We need to scrap that system and go to voluntary coalition, which is the model that's used throughout Europe and brings stable government.”