Sinn Fein complains the DUP is 'holding everybody to ransom' by refusing to go into government at Stormont for the past 12 months

It is just over one year since the DUP walked out of government over the Protocol, leaving the Province in the hands of civil servants.

However in the preceding years, Sinn Fein had caused a three-year absence of government by walking out of government, ostensibly over the RHI scandal, and then refusing to go back in until it got an Irish language act.

The Tory government later gifted such a law to Sinn Fein in the form of the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022, passed by Parliament in London last December in the absence of an Assembly.

Ms McDonald told the press today: “We’re not going backwards in this process, so power-sharing, partnership, working together, that’s the only way that any of us can make progress, and I think it’s very important that the DUP realise that and catch up with the rest of us.

“What we want to see is a deal between the British Government and Europe, we want government back up and running, and we happen to believe that we represent a very strongly held view right across society.

“We can only hope that the DUP, at some level, will respond to the logic of that position, but they certainly can’t hold everyone to ransom indefinitely, and if powersharing is no longer a thing, just bear in mind direct rule is not on the cards.

“We’ll be looking at a partnership arrangement, joint authority, between Dublin and London.

“That’s the alternative and I think the DUP need to very soberly assess that prospect.”

Meanwhile Northern Ireland Office junior minister Lord Caine has said the dispute over contentious post-Brexit trading arrangements was “never going to be solved in the courts”.

This a reference to the Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday that the Northern Ireland Protocol is lawful – although in the process, the court also confirmed that it has “in effect suspended” part of the Acts of Union.

The Protocol “requires a political solution and that is what the Government is striving to achieve,” he said.