DUP’s Gordon Lyons: Sinn Fein election rally a show of strength for border poll

All three main unionist parties also criticised Sinn Fein for staging the start of their campaigning in the same hotel repeatedly bombed by the IRA during the Troubles.

DUP director of elections Gordon Lyons said that whilst his party was putting forward its five-point plan to create a better future for Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein only wants to win the election to implement their plan for a border poll.

Mr Lyons said: “There is a clear choice on offer to people whether they want a future focused on fixing our health system, tackling the cost-of-living crisis, and replace the protocol, or one fixated on a divisive border poll.

“When Michelle O’Neill talks about making history, we know it isn’t record levels of investment into our hospitals she is referring to.

“Now is not the time for division and uncertainty. That is why this election is so important.”

Ulster Unionist South Belfast candidate Stephen McCarthy highlighted the “irony” of Sinn Fein choosing the Europa Hotel for their campaign launch. The Europa was once the most-bombed hotel in the world over three decades of terrorism.

Mr McCarthy said: “A venue that was once a byword for all that was negative about Belfast and the violence that plagued us for so long, is now one of the premier venues of a rejuvenated city.

“The irony of Sinn Fein holding a campaign launch in a hotel which the IRA tried to destroy repeatedly will certainly not be lost on many people in this city.

“It is both sad and frustrating to think that had the republican movement chosen the political route 50 years ago, so many lives and so much destruction could have been spared.”

TUV’s South Belfast candidate Andrew Girvin described the Sinn Fein gathering at the Europa as a “grotesque spectacle” given the location and that they were meeting there “daring to pontificate about democracy and the will of the people”.

Mr Girvin said: “There is nothing undemocratic about refusing to operate the Belfast Agreement structures which could foist a Sinn Fein first minister upon Northern Ireland. The choice of venue for this republican jamboree underscores the fact that no unionist should ever agree to take up the position of deputy to a Sinn Fein first minister.”

He accused both the DUP and UUP of dodging a vital question: “Will they act as bridesmaid to Michelle O’Neill?”

He continued: “TUV is unapologetic and clear on this matter. We will never provide a stooge deputy to a Sinn Fein first minister. If all unionist candidates were equally clear then we would go into the election confident in the knowledge that a republican first minister was an impossibility.

“No-one who supports the current arrangements which deny the fundamentals of democracy – the right to vote a party out of government and the right to have an opposition to hold government to account – is in any position to give lectures. Least of all when they have displayed a willingness to deploy terrorism to achieve their political ends in the past.”

Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill has vowed to defend but not renegotiate the Belfast Agreement.

At the party’s election rally, Ms O’Neill labelled the DUP decision to pull out of the last Stormont Executive as “political vandalism”.

The Sinn Fein vice-president warned that her party “will not be shifting any goalposts to satisfy unionism before, or after the election”.

She said the May 5 electoral contest was “the most important in a generation” and called on party members to “make history”.

Ms O’Neill predicted that the majority of MLAs who are returned to the Assembly after May 5 will support the protocol.

Sinn Fein is running 34 candidates across the 18 constituencies in Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, Alliance Party candidate in Lagan Valley, David Honeyford, has said it would be “morally unforgivable” for political leaders to fail to help people get through the cost-of-living crisis.

Mr Honeyford said that despite the election the Executive could use future borrowing powers to support households.