Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Gavin Robinson has said he is “very sorry” that MP Carla Lockhart has quit the party.
Robinson said he would not be criticising the Upper Bann MP, who left the party on Monday over its response to the Drumcree parading dispute, and expressed hope they would continue to work together in the future.
Lockhart had been calling for the DUP to withdraw Stormont’s deputy first minister to force Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill from their joint office.
Speaking on Tuesday, Robinson said the disagreement was over strategy not sentiment.
O’Neill and several other senior Sinn Féin figures have been interviewed by police investigating the Garvaghy Road demonstrations, with unionists accusing the party of acting unlawfully.
Last week the DUP, which shares power with Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland’s devolved government, announced it would block official engagements involving O’Neill in response to the fall-out.
But Robinson stopped short of Lockhart’s call to force O’Neill from office.
Speaking on the Good Morning Ulster programme he said: “We share exactly the same sentiment – all of us are angered, all of us believe the position of Michelle O’Neill and her willingness to break the law, to ignore the courts, to breach her pledge of office requires sanction.
“So while we share the same sentiment, we have not been in agreement when it comes to how you deal with it.
“The Democratic Unionist Party is firmly of the view that it is Michelle O’Neill who should face the consequences of her actions, not the rest of the people of Northern Ireland.
“Northern Ireland needs a functioning government, Northern Ireland needs a budget – those important discussions will continue on Thursday I believe with the secretary of state.”
Robinson said he believes “there is a role for this government to come forward with a sanctions regime that will punish those who break the pledge of office”.
Speaking after a meeting of the Northern Ireland Executive, Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly reiterated DUP calls for “unionist cooperation” and warned that unionism was “weakened by infighting”.
Little-Pengelly said the unionist community felt “anger and frustration” over Sinn Féin’s response to Drumcree and the Irish republican party had “fractured” relations within Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government.