We don’t need a pep talk from Boris Johnson, says Sinn Fein leader Michelle O’Neill

Speaking in Dublin following a meeting with Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Ms O’Neill said 10 days after the Assembly election the DUP is “holding society to ransom”.

Ms O’Neill is set to travel to Hillsborough, Co Down, later to meet with UK Prime Minister Mr Johnson.

She said: “We have no desire for a pep talk from Boris Johnson, we want politics to work.

“I want to be in the Executive. I want to lead for the people, not least to respond to the cost-of-living crisis.

“But what we have today are repeated approaches from Boris Johnson to say they are going to take unilateral action to disapply parts of the protocol, and that is just reckless and madness.

“I think all efforts and all attentions need to be turned to negotiated solutions, agreed solutions, find ways to smooth the implementation of the protocol because it is here to stay, and I think that’s an objective that both I and the Taoiseach share.”

Alliance Party leader Naomi Long said she will the urge Prime Minister that those who are preventing the Stormont Assembly from working should not be able to draw a salary.

“That’s the most important thing at this juncture because I think people over the weekend have been genuinely angry at the thought that people who are blocking the restoration of the institutions, stopping the Assembly from sitting – which was never part of the DUP’s agenda during the election – are still able to turn up and still able to get paid. So, I will be telling him that very clearly,” she told the BBC.

Ms Long also contended she felt issues around the Northern Ireland Protocol are being “exaggerated both by the DUP and by the UK Government”.

She said the business community fears instability and uncertainty, adding “that will be what is created unless the EU agree mutually-agreed ways forward on the protocol”.

Ms Long said she will also urge the Prime Minister that the Stormont Assembly must be resurrected.

“Whatever about the protocol, things are not resolved in Northern Ireland by us sitting outside of government,” she said.

Meanwhile, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said he will wait to see what the Government plans to do about the Northern Ireland Protocol.

He insisted there is not cross-community consensus on the protocol, which he said “fundamentally undermines the basis for powersharing in Northern Ireland and it needs to be dealt with ... the sooner the better”.

He told the BBC: “Let’s see where this process takes us. We set out last summer seven tests against which we would judge any action taken by the Government on the protocol, so my position has not changed on that.

“I’ll look at what the Government propose to do. I welcome the fact that, finally, after months, and indeed two and a half years since the New Decade New Approach agreement, finally we’re going to get some action.

“I want to see what the Government propose to do and I’ll judge it against what we have outlined is necessary to restore unionist confidence.”

Asked about a seeming divergence of positions with the DUP asking for the scrapping of the protocol, while the UK has referenced over-riding parts of the post-Brexit deal, Sir Jeffrey said: “We’re in a negotiating process and people start from different points, but in the end it is the outcome that matters, that’s what I’m focused on getting, and as soon as we get a solution that removes that Irish Sea border.

“The Prime Minister committed to resolving that issue, his Government committed in New Decade New Approach to protecting Northern Ireland’s place within the UK internal market. Now, that is what the Prime Minister must do.”