Statement by TUV North Antrim candidate Timothy Gaston:
“Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
“Yet that is exactly what all parties in this election apart from TUV are asking the public to do.
“TUV alone is demanding the radical change which Northern Ireland needs. Stormont was never held in high estimation by the public but with this election it has sunk to a new low.
“Just months after people were promised a “Fresh Start” and many Unionists voted for Arlene Foster’s DUP candidates because they believe she offered a new beginning we have devolution in crisis once again and a political class tainted by incompetence at best and possible corruption.
“The public are fed up and rightly so.
“We cannot go on like this.
“Stormont needs a radical overhaul.
“TUV has long argued for voluntary coalition so that those who can agree form a government while those who cannot form an opposition and provide an alternative at the next election. Ironically while the UUP and SDLP went into this election as opposition parties both remain wedded to a system which means that even if they were to overtake the DUP and Sinn Fein at the polls those parties would retain places in government as of right!
“In the absence of agreement to form a normal government TUV believes that British ministers should take over the Executive, but this time their laws and actions should be subject to the Assembly, so as to secure local accountability.
“Stormont doesn’t work. After so many years of failure and deadlock it’s insanity to go to the electorate suggesting we don’t radically change it.
“It’s time we recognised reality and moved on.”