DUP ‘can do no other than remove Michelle O’Neill’ – Lockhart

The DUP can do no other but remove Michelle O’Neill as First Minister, Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart has insisted.

In a letter to her party colleagues, Ms Lockhart indicated that there could be no “clever halfway house” to “gas light those who have trusted us”.

The DUP MP published her letter on social media on Thursday as her party agreed to block joint engagements with First Minister Michelle O’Neill amid tensions between the DUP and Sinn Féin over the Drumcree parade dispute.

Ms O’Neill is among a host of Sinn Féin and People Before Profit representatives who have attended a voluntary interview with police over alleged breaches of the Parades Commission determination which allowed the parade along the Garvaghy Road for the first time in 30 years.

The parade was blocked by sizeable crowds of protesters on the road in Portadown.

Ms Lockhart previously resigned as a DUP party officer over a difference of opinion with her party’s leadership over the handling of Drumcree.

In a five-page letter to party colleagues, Ms Lockhart described the DUP as her “home” and something she “greatly values”.

She also said she did not want to be leader of the party.

“I have resigned on a matter of principle from the office bearing role in the party I held,” she wrote, adding she regretted having to make her position public.

“I tried to make my case internally but I regret to say that I feel these concerns were simply shouted down or dismissed.

“In some instances, even worse, I was accused of being a puppet for others outside the party.

“I make my own decisions.

“There is no one, much less any man, who pulls my strings.”

Ms Lockhart went on to describe the issues they face as now being wider than Drumcree.

She accused Ms O’Neill of having “openly defied the law, and incited others to do so”.

She reiterated her view that the DUP can and should remove Ms O’Neill from office.

“There is only one credible option, and that is to remove the First Minister from office and deliver the profound consequences we promised,” she said.

“The suggestion of a halfway house or any form of graduated response is insulting to those who have trusted us.”

Concluding her letter, Ms Lockhart wrote: “If, however, once more the approach is to try and carve out some clever halfway house, and to gaslight those who have trusted us, I simply can no longer be party to that, and I will take my own course, stand on my own principles and bear whatever personal cost comes with that.

“As colleagues, I believe you deserved to hear this from me directly.

“I urge you all to find your voice and speak out: it is liberating, and those who place their trust in you will thank you for it.

“Remove Michelle O’Neill, take a stand for the rule of law and the principles this party has long been said to stand for.”