DUP MP CARLA Lockhart has announced her resignation from the party over its response to the Drumcree parade dispute. 

Lockhart had urged the party to withdraw Emma Little-Pengelly as deputy first minister and collapse Stormont over the issue. 

In a statement issued this evening, the MP for Upper Bann said that she will continue on as an independent MP after quitting the party she’s been a member of “for over two decades.” 

“The party’s response has fallen far short of the profound consequences promised. Alongside my concerns over the implementation of the Irish Sea border, this has left me unable, in all conscience, to continue within the party,” Lockhart added. 

In a social media post, Lockhart reiterated her view that Michelle O’Neill’s position as first minister is “not tolerable”. 

O’Neill and other Sinn Féin politicians are being investigated for taking part in a protest on the Garvaghy Road that aimed to stop Portadown Orange Order members from marching in the area, which is predominantly nationalist. 

While DUP politicians have been highly critical of O’Neill and questioned the legitimacy of her position, the party’s leadership has stopped short of collapsing the devolved institutions. 

Lockhart said that she is “not starting a new political party” but that she wants to help build a “grassroots movement” within political Unionism. 

“I look forward to working with all shades of Unionism, elected or not, to advance the cause we love and give our time to preserve,” she further said. 

DUP leader Gavin Robin, speaking to reporters this evening, accused Lockhart of “arrogance”. 

He said that it cannot be the case that every time a lawmaker in Northern Ireland “breaks the law” that it can “bring down the institutions”. 

Today O’Neill told the Stormont Assembly that she will not be “deterred” from doing her job, and accused the DUP of taking a “supremacist” approach to nationalists.