On speculation that Stormont could be restored in the autumn, he responded: 'I'm rubbishing that. I don't see where that's coming from.'
He rubbished speculation that the Executive and Assembly could be revived in the autumn, saying there are "still substantial hurdles that have got to be crossed".
The DUP has been blocking Stormont power-sharing until their concerns are addressed around post-Brexit trading with Great Britain under the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Windsor Framework. "I'm rubbishing that because it's being put about by our political enemies to try and say the DUP, we're just being hypocritical, we're fighting the election, trying to get the cover, and then go back in.
The MP added: "We have had the BBC, we've had national broadcasters, we've had governments, we've had Prime Ministers, we've had presidents flown in, to castigate our party and say all these issues are trivial. They're not and until they're fixed, how on earth could we even contemplate restoring an Assembly that still won't address these issues?"
Each week, our Political Reporter Brendan Hughes pulls together some of the biggest and most important matters from Belfast and Northern Ireland that we think you’d be interested in reading.
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