Collapsing power-sharing and returning to direct rule from London would consign unionists to second class citizenship, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) said today.
Peter Robinson said alleged Sinn Féin threats to the devolved institutions were destabilising and promised he would not walk away from the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The power-sharing partners have been negotiating the transfer of policing and justice powers from London to Belfast once the DUP is satisfied community confidence exists.
And the East Belfast MP said the vision of hardline unionist Jim Allister of politics free from Sinn Féin would be a step backwards.
¿It was we in the DUP who secured devolution on terms acceptable to unionists and who finally scattered those birds of passage, the Direct Rule ministers, for so long the public face of a colonial system of government that consigned us all to the status of second-class citizens,¿ he said.
The DUP leader also faces a threat from a combined Ulster Unionist and Conservative Party electoral ticket advocating closer ties with London.
Mr Robinson said ¿and I warn those unionist cave dwellers who seek to wreck our achievements that they had better be prepared to come clean and explain to the people of Northern Ireland how on earth they think the return of Direct Rule, which is all they have to offer, represents a safer choice or a better way.¿
PA