The DUP will not re-enter the powersharing Assembly at Stormont unless its demands regarding the Northern Ireland protocol are met, party leader Jeffrey Donaldson has said.
“Either the prime minister delivers the provisions of the Protocol Bill by legislation or by negotiation and ensures that our place in the United Kingdom is restored, or there will be no basis to re-enter Stormont,” Mr Donaldson said, to cheers from the party faithful at the party conference in Belfast on Saturday.
He said the DUP welcomed the resumption of talks between the UK government and the EU on the protocol but said the “dominant question” was not how a resolution was found, but the “destination reached”.
“It is not words but actions we need to see, and we will judge any outcome on the basis of actions not words,” Mr Donaldson said.
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The DUP conference was the party’s first since 2019 because of the Covid-19 pandemic and Mr Donaldson’s first since becoming leader. He took to the stage to sustained applause and was clapped and cheered for several minutes as his speech concluded.
Northern Ireland has been without a functioning Assembly since the elections in May, when the DUP refused to re-enter the powersharing government until its concerns over the protocol were resolved to its satisfaction.
Some unionists oppose to the protocol because they argue it puts an economic border between the North and the rest of the UK and has undermined its constitutional position as part of that union.
Northern secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has repeatedly said he intends to call an election at the end of the month if the deadline for the restoration of the Assembly is not met.
“We do not fear the prospect of a fresh election, far from it,” Mr Donaldson said. “We will campaign as never before to secure a further fresh mandate from the people.”
He warned the UK government that it needed to “tread sensitively and act wisely if they wish to see unionist confidence rebuilt and the conditions created for durable powersharing”.
Referring to the last election, in which the DUP lost three seats and returned 25 Assembly members, Mr Donaldson said those election losses were “the direct result of splintered unionism” and appealed for unionist unity in order to reverse them.
At the beginning of his speech, Mr Donaldson also extended his sympathies to the families of those bereaved and those injured in the explosion in Creeslough, Co Donegal, on Friday.
He thanked the emergency services from both sides of the Border for their efforts in recent days and said the assistance provided from Northern Ireland was “what being a good neighbour is about.”
“We assure the people of Creeslough of our collective prayers and want them to know that they will continue to be in our thoughts in the days ahead,” he said.
