A warning for Northern Ireland Assembly First Minister Peter Robinson

Buffalobrave, would you please provide one example of either the DUP or UUP MLAs not wanting to share power with nationalists on an equal basis? Am getting bored with all the baseless one-sided claims.

Actually Peter Robinson is one of the most astute politicians Northern Ireland has. The problem buffalo is that in the recent European elections to the EU Parliament the DUP vote went from 33% to 19% with the difference being accountable to former DUP european MEP Jim Allister who split from the DUP on a hardline anti Sinn Fein / mandatory coalition ticket. Robinson has been taking a very slim line with little room for maneouvre. He has also outlined reform of the Institutions to make the Northern Ireland Assembly more efficient as it has too many representatives compared to Scottish and Welsh devolved institutions. He has proposed a weighted majority system rather than mutual veto - this would ensure cross community support is required whilst stopping some of the deadlock we currently see..ie on education where Sinn Fein with 28% of the vote can override the other parties, SDLP, Alliance, DUP, UUP, PUP and equally so can the DUP with 33% as each represent over half of their `designation`. Mandatory coalition where nearly ALL the parties are in government is not good democracy - we need a system that allows an opposition and which allows the people to elect a different government than the current one aka UK, US ....BUT also recognised Northern Irelands devidied society of two communities..this is where the weighted majority system advocted by Robinson stands out..

Peter Robinson is gutless and is a poor excuse for a leader. Besides, unionists can't share power on an equal bases. By sharing power unionists would negate the very reason they insisted on the state being created in the first place.