DUP MP Ian Paisley has said the conditions for calling a border poll must be “significantly higher than a mood, post-election”.
The North Antrim MP made the comments after growing calls to set out the criteria for a vote on Irish unity after Sinn Féin emerged as the largest party in the local elections.
Despite Sinn Féin now becoming the largest party in Stormont and across Northern Ireland councils, he said that support for a united Ireland was still “nowhere near” the threshold required.
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“Nationalism is nowhere near, republicanism is nowhere near a significant enough bulk where they can seriously think any government would say ‘now is the time to hold such a border poll’,” he told The News Letter.
"So I think we have to keep that in perspective.”
Last week, Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald said that “engagement and planning” for a border poll could take place alongside the return of Stormont.
The Assembly has been in deadlock for over a year now as part of the DUP’s ongoing boycott in protest over post-Brexit trading arrangements.
Responding the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s claim that an imminent border poll would be “counterproductive” as restoring the assembly was more important.
Ms McDonald accused him of being “on the wrong page”.
“I think to advance an argument that we will not prepare for the medium and long-term future simply because we have challenges in the present, that doesn’t stack up. That’s not responsible politics in my view,” she told the BBC.
Although Sinn Féin finished by adding 39 councillors to finish with an all-time high of 144, the DUP maintained their figure of 122.
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told party supporters this could be considered a mandate to “finish the job” and continue boycotting Stormont.
He added that “more work” was needed by the UK government to address the “economic and democratic deficit” the Northern Ireland protocol had created.
In February, the Windsor Framework agreed between the UK and EU sought to appease the DUP by minimising checks on goods coming from the mainland UK to Northern Ireland.
Sir Jeffrey has maintained the agreement “does not deal with some of the fundamental problems at the heart of our current difficulties”.
