NI Dec 22 Assembly Election

So.. it still suits the DUP from a political strategy point of view. They lost seats in the last Assembly elections and want to get back the first minister position. When SF pulled out previously, it suited them as well. There's a pair of them in it. For the citizens of NI, it's like having two monkeys on yer back, wrangling all the time and trying to throw the other off.

What's the state of play right now, I think the decision on a date for election has been postponed to middle of Dec, and if still no agreement on a date by then it will be postponed into late January, with the possibility of then setting a date of after April?

Something is very wrong with the process, citizens are being left in limbo, anyone waiting for change has to grin and bear it.

I think the election results will be a hammering for the DUP at this stage. They are going to be wiped out.

Absolutely it is time. Removing the requirement for designation and letting Stormont become a normal parliament gives the balance of power to parties like Alliance, SDLP and the Greens.

Risible nonsense.

I have clearly said that both the DUP and SF are wrong to have brought down Stormont. Which bit of that don't you understand?

All I am doing is pointing out the huge hypocritical holes in your argument, and you resort to strawman attacks on me.

You have clearly demonstrated your need (we know why) to make sure that everything the DUP do is the same as SF do.

Which is evidently not true.

You resist evidencing this when asked what rights SF are blocking and refusing to see the difference between abstaining on something the devolved government can fix and something it can't.

You can't see the difference between the PIRA and the old IRA, so it is more than a bit rich to accuse others of not seeing a difference. You also can't see the difference between the Northern Irish identity and Kerry which says even more about an inability to discern difference.

I'm not disputing that they have a right to do it; I am disputing that it is democratic to collapse functioning democratic institutions in protest at something not done by those institutions, and over which those institutions have no control.

At a minimum, if DUP MPs do not with draw from the Westminster institutions which imposed the Protoocl on them, their claim that withdrawing from entirely different institutions is a form of protest against the actions of the institutions they continue to participate in is hard to take seriously.

Heaton-Harris is now threatening the thing that has got Stormont going before - get back in there or there'll be water charges.

What utter nonsense.

what had an Irish language act have to do with the dup?

Dup have stated the will serve with a sf first minister / something the main parties in the south won’t say.

the only Trojan horse is the equality Trojan horse that Gerry says sf will use to break the Protestant bastards

They were blocking it using the PoC when a majority of MLA's were in favour of it.

So let me try to understanding your hypocrisy.

the dup were operating the rules of the institution democratically to delay a discriminatory ILA. You say sf had the right to opt out of the institutions resulting in them collapsing for 3 years.

the protocol is being forced upon the unionist community and the dup do not have the right to opt out of the institutions even though their electorate are saying very clearly ‘we want you to stay out’

have I got that correct?

Again, no. You keep attributing views to me which I have not expressed.

I have said is that the reason for the DUP's current withdrawal from the institutions does not provide a democratic justification (and I have explained why and you haven't taken issue with anything I said about that).

I haven't said anything about hypothetical withdrawals by the DUP for hypothetical different reasons. Obviously, a different reason for withdrawal could be democratically respectable, and whether it was or not need not depend on whether republicans agreed with it. Where have I ever suggested that it would?

Tell us a little more about this

“The DUP used the PcC in a way it wasn't designed for. I.E. Undemocratically. That is, they were blocking rights in a way that halted the GFA and it's ancillary agreements.”

could you show me where the gfa agreed to an ILA??

….and maybe while you are at it, tell us what you think the PcC is for (and not for), ? makes no sense to me what you are saying