Statement by TUV vice-chairman and Orangeman Richard Cairns:
“Today’s decision by the Parades Commission repeats the mistakes of last year.
“Once again the Commission fails to explain why it is acceptable for Orangemen to parade into the city but unacceptable to parade back to their hall. Is offence caused by the direction in which a Loyal Order parade is travelling? The fact that the Lodges have engaged in months of talks designed to address any legitimate concerns has been ignored by the Commission which has again bowed to the greater threat of violence and created enormous anger and resentment within the Unionist community.
“In recent weeks TUV has been involved in a united Unionist effort to resolve this situation. From the outset we have made it clear that there should be political consequences if the North Belfast situation was not resolved and specifically we made the point that while there was once a cry of “No talk, no walk” the Unionist response to today’s outcome should be “No walk, no talk”. We therefore very much welcome the announcement that the DUP and UUP are withdrawing from the leaders talks. All Unionists are now in agreement that the Haass process has been “fruitless”.”