Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister QC:

"The DUP's preoccupation with TUV at their Conference today is testament to our effect and impact in holding to account and exposing those who welshed on their pledges and principles. It's clear 'Sleepless in Dundela' is still running.

We take no lessons on honesty or consistency from those who solemnly pledged in their 2005 manifesto that mandatory coalition was "OUT OF THE QUESTION", but now give us the obscenity of terrorists in government under precisely that iniquitous system.

Peter Robinson needn't conjure up the bogeymen of Direct Rule when he has given us IRA/Sinn Fein rule and that of the very variety that permits republicans to veto every Executive decision, producing the chaos and deadlock which is failed Belfast Agreement devolution. Mr Robinson is presiding over the most miserable and failed government anywhere in Europe and if this is the "success" he intends to build upon, then he engenders no fear in TUV.

Neither the fury nor panic of the DUP Conference will deflect us from seeking for Northern Ireland the durable and democratic devolution which it deserves, rather than the current shambolic failure which the DUP/Sinn Fein coalition has inflicted on us at Stormont.

As for foolish and dishonest talk that demanding proper democracy will induce 'Dublin Rule', it betokens the defeatism which comes from cowering to the Sinn Fein veto and having no power but that which IRA leader McGuinness allows you to jointly exercise with him. Shackled to Sinn Fein as the price of exercising any joint power is not success for Unionism, but defeat. Sadly, the DUP is comfortable there and will go on paying the price necessary to sustain them there, including devolving policing and justice to an Executive in which IRA/Sinn Fein hold that power of veto.

I look forward to he next electoral challenge when again the electorate will have the opportunity to judge the DUP on their stewardship. As last June they will find tens of thousands of Unionists unbowed and unmoved by their spin and pretence. They will be judged by their deeds, including the 'delivery' of their coalition with Sinn Fein and their abuse of double/triple jobbing and expenses.

They know it and that is why today they hit out so venomously at those who would dare to spoil the party with Sinn Fein. Viewers will not have failed to notice that the enemy today was Traditional Unionists, not Sinn Fein. That in itself is a timely commentary on the sad plight into which the DUP has got itself."

NI politics