NI Secretary to face fresh demands to block any Orange parade down Garvaghy Road

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris Bryant is set to face fresh demands to block any possibility of the Orange Order being allowed to march down Garvaghy Road.The stand-off between Orange men at Drumcree seeking to march down the road – a Catholic estate in a largely Protestant town – follows two days of rising tensions that raise questions over the ability of Northern Ireland’s Stormont institutions to survive.The legal permission won by the Orange Order after lengthy court battles on Saturday to march from Drumcree Church of Ireland to its headquarters in Portadown expired at midnight.The order now requires a fresh application to the Parades Commission to see if its march is legal under 30-year-old legislation.READ MOREHowever, the Northern Ireland Secretary has the power to overrule everyone, including the courts, and ban the march, though it is clear that Bryant, who was appointed to the job just two months ago, does not want to follow that route.The Labour politician will face renewed pressure on Monday in conversations with both nationalist parties, Sinn Féin and the SDLP.Calling for calm again last night, Bryant said he would talk with all parties again. Late on Sunday, the majority of the few hundred Orange supporters who had gathered at Drumcree to support the order and oppose parades legislation had largely departed after 10pm.On the other side of the standoff, significant numbers of nationalists remained on Garvaghy Road.Hundreds of protesters spent Sunday blocking the route of the divisive parade after the court gave late-night clearance for the Orange Order to march on a historically significant road for the first time since 1998 as approved by the Parades Commission.[ ‘It’s like going back in time’ – after 28 years, communities stand off on Garvaghy RoadOpens in new window ]Orangemen spent the day in Drumcree church, the planned starting point of the march, and said they would wait until police told them the road was clear.There appeared little or no chance of any serious attempt being made by the Orange Order to breach the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) cordon blocking the route, given that they have argued they are on the right side of the law in the case since the Court of Appeal sided with them.On Monday, Bryant and the PSNI will face significant pressure to investigate senior Sinn Féin figures, including the First Minister Michelle O’Neill, for being involved in the Garvaghy protest, which is illegal under parading legislation and which does contravene the ministerial code signed up by Stormont ministers that they will abide by the law. However, there is little appetite on Bryant’s part for any such prosecution.Bryant urged “everybody to keep calm” and to co-operate with police as he pushes for a resolution and to find “some kind of compromise so that people are able to go home”.[ Orange Order march could ‘reawaken old animosities’, Drumcree residents warnOpens in new window ]He confirmed he would continue talking to all the main political parties on Monday following discussions on Sunday after cutting short his attendance at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool to travel to Belfast. He has said he did not have the powers to call off the march unless police formally requested him to do so.On Sunday evening, O’Neill urged protesters to the “stay the course” by staying on the road until at least midnight, when the Parades Commission’s approval expires.“Do not give up at this stage; we have come this far, the people of Garvaghy Road need us to stay with them tonight,” she told residents and supporters. DUP leader Gavin Robinson said Sinn Féin leaders must face prosecution.“We can’t have a situation where people who have the privilege of holding high office in Northern Ireland so flagrantly disregard the pledge of office and statutory underpinnings of their office,” he said.[ Decades after flashpoints of the 1990s, Drumcree is just as dangerousOpens in new window ]For now, the next steps of the Orange Order are unclear. It has made clear that it will stay “an hour, a day, or 10 days” to vindicate its rights. However, it cannot do this under the legislation without going back to the Parades Commission to secure fresh permission to march down the road.The Parades Commission’s permission last week was based significantly on a judgment by the PSNI that a march by the Orange Order on Garvaghy Road would not provoke major public order issues – a judgment regarded as “madness” by Sinn Féin and sharply criticised by the SDLP. The escalating political row over the parade has tested Stormont’s stability, less than nine months before Northern Ireland’s voters go to the polls.In Belfast, Robinson, the DUP leader, was asked whether he was prepared to continue to work with Sinn Féin. If either the DUP or Sinn Féin withdrew from Northern Ireland’s powersharing executive, the devolved government would effectively collapse.[ Claim Orangemen must march on Garvaghy Road because of tradition ‘a nonsense’, former SF staffer saysOpens in new window ]“Our party is maintaining the dignity of the Portadown Orangemen as they have shown determination and patience, so will we,” said Robinson.“I can look at you all in the eye today and say we are being plunged into difficult territory because of the actions of people who are expected to be lawmakers in our country breaking the law.“The fundamental principle of upholding the rule of law in this society are sacrosanct and cannot be tarnished.”Earlier, Sinn Féin vice president O’Neill told reporters on the Garvaghy Road that the reignition of the Drumcree dispute “brings into question how this whole peace process works”.