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Deirdre Heenan: DUP have trapped the North in a state of dysfunction and drift

There are no signs that the DUP is prepared to return to power sharing, but neither are there any indications of what they actually want

Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the DUP, is under little pressure, either from his base or from Westminster, to get a functioning government back up and running. Picture: PA

Autumn is on its way and many politicians and commentators had confidently predicted that this would be marked by the DUP’s return to power sharing. This is beginning to look very ambitious. In the current context there is little to indicate that restoring the Stormont institutions is in any way imminent. More than 18 months since the DUP collapsed the power-sharing institutions, the North remains in no man’s land, limping on without a government in ...