‘No running commentary’ on efforts to restore Stormont – NI Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris

Stressing the importance of privacy in relation to talks with the DUP and other parties, Chris Heaton-Harris suggested there was too much being said in public when previous attempts to resolve the post-Brexit trading difficulties were taking place.

The DUP is refusing to re-enter the executive, saying the latest deal agreed between the UK and the EU – the Windsor Framework – does not effectively address the trade border in the Irish Sea created by the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The party has insisted it will not return to Stormont until it secures further legislative assurances from the UK Government around sovereignty and trade.

Following a meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in central London on Monday, both the UK and Irish governments made renewed pledges to restore governance in the region.

A joint communique said the politicians had “discussed the serious and deepening consequences for people in Northern Ireland arising from the ongoing absence of fully functioning institutions”.

Mr Heaton-Harris later told reporters: “I engage regularly with all political parties in Northern Ireland, including the DUP”.

However, he declined to make any further comment, other than to say that he would not be giving a “running commentary” about the talks process.

Stressing that point, he said: “When it came to the Windsor Framework, I think I learned the lesson that the best place for negotiations on such an important issue are done in private.”

TUV leader Jim Allister has been maintaining pressure on the DUP not to return to Stormont while the Protocol remains in place.

Speaking at the AGM of his party’s Central Council, Jim Allister compared a restorted executive – without “equal UK citizenship” – to the puppet regime in France following the German invasion in 1940.

​Mr Allister said unionism should not be involved in propping up a “Vichy” Stormont under the Protocol, “because it requires active complicity in accepting and aiding the dismantling of the Union”.He said: “No figleaf conjured up by Westminster, or anyone else, will alter that reality. If the Protocol’s imposition of foreign law and customs code, resulting alignment economically with ROI and the operation of the partitioning Irish Sea border continues, then, to operate Stormont is to accept such dismantling of the Union as permanent, indeed as transitioning us into an all-Ireland arrangement.”Mr Allister said that faced with such “unpalatable” realities, unionism should unite to demand equal citizenship in the United Kingdom."Forget the unworkable anti-unionist Stormont and demand that which is most irresistible, that of being treated equally within our own country."Returning to the basics of unionism is a far better course than aiding and abetting our unequal treatment by operating a Vichy Stormont,” he said.

Meanwhile, both the UK and Irish governments continue to disagree over the UK’s legacy Bill, which proposes an offer of immunity from prosecution for perpetrators of crimes during the Troubles who co-operate with a truth-recovery body.

It is vocally opposed by victims’ groups and political parties in Northern Ireland, and Tanaiste Micheal Martin said that Irish concerns remain.

The Fianna Fail leader said that the Irish Government had “fundamental concerns about legislation before parliament”, insisting that the best approach was the “two governments working collectively together with the parties in Northern Ireland”.

But he played down any prospect of the Dublin bringing a case to the European Court of Human Rights over the Bill, calling any suggestions “premature”.

Mr Heaton-Harris insisted that the UK Government would “continue with the legacy Bill”.

He said that recent amendments had improved the Bill, adding: “I will be able to say, I am assured, have had assurances, that this does fulfil all the requirements under our international obligations.”