Paisley calls for fresh assembly elections

The British government faced calls today to dissolve the Northern Ireland Assembly and call immediate elections following the Ulster Unionist Party’s threat to resign from the power-sharing executive next January.

Democratic Unionist leader the Rev Ian Paisley denounced the latest move by Northern Ireland First Minister David Trimble to put pressure on republicans as “another pathetic stunt to deceive the electorate and boost the UUP at the polls”.

Mr Paisley, MP for North Antrim, declared: “The Northern Ireland Assembly must be dissolved to allow fresh elections.

“It is clear that the current arrangements are lurching from one crisis to another.

“Neither the present Assembly nor the Sinn Fein/IRA driven executive can provide a stable basis for the governance of Northern Ireland.

“Prolonging this crisis orientated situation for another three months will be of no benefit to the people of Northern Ireland.”

On Saturday Mr Trimble’s Ulster Unionists set a January 18 deadline for Sinn Fein to guarantee that the IRA will disband.

The Ulster Unionist Council also agreed to immediate sanctions on republicans by agreeing that its ministers would boycott North-South Ministerial Council meetings involving Irish Government ministers and Stormont Sinn Fein ministers.

Mr Trimble insisted yesterday that a complete disintegration of the IRA could be achieved within the four-month time frame through a number of ways.

“It could be that the people in the IRA move unequivocally into Sinn Fein and devote themselves purely to democratic means,” he said.

But Mr Paisley said: “David Trimble and his Ulster Unionist Party have now become the recruitment agency for Sinn Fein with their appeal to IRA men to join Sinn Fein.

“Having previously said that the organisations are inextricably linked, this latest statement is yet another U-turn by David Trimble who will say or do anything to save his own position.”