Peter Robinson's rallying call for DUP to ''stand firm' as election deadline looms

With just over 24 hours to go before the NI Secretary’s deadline for the DUP to restore the Stormont Executive – or face a fresh election in December – the former party leader and First Minister used a Facebook post to lambast the DUP’s rivals over alleged double standards.

His message followed a pledge from the current leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, that the party is geared up to fight an expected pre-Christmas election campaign if one is confirmed.

“If the Secretary of State decides to call the election I’m not afraid to take my case to the people,” Mr Donaldson said.

In his first Facebook message since the death of David Trimble in July, Mr Robinson said: “Let me see, have I got this right? Sinn Fein, 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 NI 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.”

Mr Robinson also took a swipe at the media elements he claimed are insisting the DUP breaks its manifesto commitment not to re-enter Stormont until the protocol issues are resolved, and the UUP he said believe “that the best way to remove the damage of the Protocol is to work as normal with the Protocol unchanged.”

In response to calls from nationalists for Dublin to have a role in governing Northern Ireland in the absence of an executive, Mr Robinson said: “The SDLP want joint-authority while insisting they respect the principle of consent for constitutional change.”

As Friday night’s one minute past midnight election call deadline approaches, Sinn Fein has also talked up the possibility of a role for the Irish Government as an alternative to direct rule from Westminster, while Alliance has suggested that a form of Dublin involvement is “open for debate”.

On Wednesday, Irish premier Micheal Martin said: “In the event that there is a sustained period with no functioning of the Northern Ireland executive body assembly, there cannot be a return to the direct rule arrangements of the past.”

In his social media message, Mr Robinson also rounded on NI Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris for “thinking he knows what unionist voters will do” at the polls, before he signed off with: “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.”

Writing in Thursday’s News Letter, DUP leader Mr Donaldson is highly critical of the UK Government’s stance.

He states: "Rather than deal with the Protocol which they helped create, they are instead causing further delay in finding a solution on a Protocol that is not working.”