Unionism needs to look to the future after election results - O'Neill

Unionism "needs to start looking to the future" when it comes to conversations about constitutional change, Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O'Neill has said.

The Sinn Féin vice-president was speaking in the wake of election results in Wales and Scotland, where pro-independence parties won, meaning for the first time all three devolved nations will have pro-independence first ministers.

O'Neill said the public needed to break free from "the shackles of Westminster".

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Gavin Robinson said suggestions the results for the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru represented a seismic change were "fanciful".

"People in Scotland were voting against Keir Starmer, not against the union," said Robinson.

"People in Wales were voting against Keir Starmer, not against the union, and when we get our chance, people in Northern Ireland will have their say next year.

"I'll make you two guarantees. That unionism will win that election. And if unionists bring themselves to cooperate, they will win in a way that you cannot ignore."

In Northern Ireland, the first and deputy first minister have identical powers and responsibilities and the DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly is the deputy first minister.

The DUP leader criticised the prime minister and said he had "lost support" across the UK, though he added that the question of his future leadership remained an internal matter for Labour.

When asked if Starmer should remain as prime minister, O'Neill also said that was a matter for the Labour Party.

The Social, Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Stormont's official opposition, said the election of three nationalist first ministers was "symbolic" but urged caution about overstating the results.

Its leader, Claire Hanna, said "symbolism doesn't put bread in anybody's table".

"It doesn't do the work of persuasion," she added.

"It doesn't do the work of showing that you can use power responsibly and change people's lives."

The Alliance Party leader said the results demonstrated that people were "fed up with politics".

Naomi Long added that Keir Starmer had not done enough in a speech on Monday to provide reassurance that he is capable of taking government in a different direction.

Asked about the success of Reform UK, Long described its leader Nigel Farage as a "grifter who's in it for himself".

"What worries me is that so many of our local unionist politicians are fanboying around Nigel Farage," she said.

But she said she did not believe the weekend's results made a Reform UK government after the next general election an "inevitable consequence".

Speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly on Monday during a debate on the results, Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader Jon Burrows said the majority of votes in last week's elections had been cast for pro-union parties.

"I suspect we'll be here in 50 years' time and we'll have relatively youthful Sinn Féin members saying in 2060, the border poll is just round the corner.

"But here's the reality, most people in Northern Ireland just want us to get on with making things work."

Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) assembly member Timothy Gaston described the results as a "rejection of the old parties".

"The lesson from these elections is not that the union is dying, it is that voters across the UK have finally woken up and are revolting against the political class," he added.