Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“Once again talks to resurrect devolution have failed. Is anyone surprised? I doubt it.
“Having had 20 years of these farces we are surely at the point where time should be called on Humpty Dumpty politics. Seeking to put a fundamentally failed system back together again after it repeatedly falls apart will always fail to deliver the stable devolution Northern Ireland needs. The reason is simple and irrefutable – Sinn Fein in not in Stormont to make Northern Ireland work, quite the reverse. So a system that can only operate with them at the heart of government will NEVER work. It’s time to get real.
“Furthermore, it is obvious that Stormont is now a vehicle for hollowing out the Britishness of our Province. Republicans are holding the process to ransom over the issue of an Irish Language Act – something which would further an express objective in the IRA Green Book, make employment in the public sector much more difficult for members of the Protestant community and leave the British people of Northern Ireland feeling aliens in their own land.
“Even with the DUP foolishly prepared to make major concessions on this issue it still wasn’t enough for Sinn Fein.
“It’s time to put an end to the Stormont sham and have direct rule from the sovereign parliament at Westminster.”