Little sign risks required to break Stormont deadlock will be taken

Evan Maxwell: Tell the unionists that Leo and Simon are coming to govern them and watch how fast they pass that Irish Language Act and same-sex marriage. The fright of joint sovereignty would be enough.

Bill Carson: Leo and Simon would have to pay half the block grant, otherwise it would not be joint sovereignty.

Evan Maxwell: Bill, sounds like a fair price. Bill Carson: It wouldn’t happen. They never put their money where their mouths are.

Evan Maxwell: I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that, even if they paid the full block grant, you wouldn’t be for sharing sovereignty.

Michael Crowe: Ha, ha. The best thing that can happen is a new general election in the UK. While the DUP are hanging on to May’s apron strings, nothing will happen. And all the time the British people are asking themselves: where do these dreadful DUP MPs come from?

Glenn Pollin: Joint sovereignty would be both against the will of the people and the Good Friday Agreement. Dream on.

Vicki Nolan: Bring on direct rule. Let the laws from the mainland be forced upon this backwater. Bring on same-sex marriage and the Abortion Act 1967. Stormont is done. Too much to hope for that elected representatives could sit in a functioning Assembly in a post-conflict society that still remains so full of hatred.

Evan Maxwell: But the DUP are in government with the Tories. “The time is not right” for same-sex marriage here, according to Theresa May

Tony Fearon: Joint authority. All else has failed. Charlie Lough: Ha, ha, ha. Remember, Tony, the DUP is running the show.

Tony Fearon: I don’t think so. As Monday a week ago has proved. Theresa May does not tell them anything.

Derek Blackshaw: When the DUP drop the imagined hierarchy, in which they see themselves as superior to everyone else, we might get somewhere. Until then, there will be no progress.