Trimble calls for 'centrist' cross-community rule

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble called today for the creation of a cross-community administration in Northern Ireland based on the "centrist" parties from the unionist and nationalist communities.

Mr Trimble urged voters in the upcoming Westminster elections to "reinvigorate" the centre by backing the two main "moderate" parties in the North - his own Ulster Unionist Party and the nationalist SDLP - in the general election.

He said that the "extremes" of Sinn Féin and Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) - the two biggest parties in the last Assembly elections – had failed to deliver agreement and should be consigned to a period of opposition.

"I think it would be much better now to let the parties and the extremes have a bit of time in opposition where they can sort themselves out," he told BBC1's Breakfast With Frost programme.

"I think you could have a cross-community administration based on the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP. I think that trying to have a cross-community administration that brings in every party isn't going to work in the present circumstances.

"What we want to see in this election is whether people are prepared to vote for that or are they going to, as it were, endorse the extremes and reinforce stalemate."

SDLP leader Mark Durkan agreed that Sinn Féin and DUP could not produce a political settlement.

"We will not get to destination progress with a Sinn Féin-DUP ticket," he said.

He said that any restoration of power-sharing had to be on a fully inclusive basis - based on the principles of the Good Friday Agreement - with no parties excluded.

"What we need to do is start on the basis of restoring the institutions and then testing where the parties actually stand - who is up for what - and flush everybody out," he said.

"I think the way forward is actually back to the agreement. I think trying to do things without parties or against parties doesn't work. We have to go forward on an inclusive basis."