The DUP today turned up the heat on the post-Brexit border row as the party warned it won’t re-enter powersharing in Northern Ireland without ‘decisive action’ on trade rules.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson insisted his party would not be nominating ministers to a Stormont Executive until there was movement on the Northern Ireland Protocol.

He spoke after talks with Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis, who today travelled to Belfast to meet with all parties following last week’s historic election results.

For the first time ever, a nationalist party became the largest at Stormont after Sinn Fein won the most seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

This has triggered a stand-off with the DUP, the largest unionist party, who are now refusing to form a power-sharing administration due to their opposition to the Protocol.

Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O’Neill can’t form a devolved government at Stormont as First Minister without the DUP nominating a Deputy First Minister.

The election result has piled the pressure on the UK Government to come up with a solution to its dispute with the EU over the Protocol.

The Protocol was designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland after Brexit and imposed checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

But the EU’s ‘dogmatic’ and ‘rigid’ implementation of the Protocol has been blamed  by British ministers for causing significant trade disruption.

And unionists are concerned the agreement has been detrimental to Northern Ireland’s status within the UK.

The UK Government has repeatedly refused to rule out taking unilateral action to tear up key parts of the Protocol, should ongoing talks with the EU on the issue fail to reach a solution.

Downing Street today attempted to play down reports of a Cabinet rift over whether the UK should soon scrap the Protocol.

Following his talks with Mr Lewis today, Sir Jeffrey said he had made the DUP’s position ‘clear’ as he demanded the Protocol row was ‘resolved’.

‘It is the position we have held before the election, throughout the election campaign and will continue to hold, and that is until we get decisive action taken by the UK Government on the Protocol we will not be nominating ministers to the Executive,’ he said.

‘We want to see stable political institutions, we want to be part of the Executive, we want to play our part and fulfil the mandate we were given by the people of Northern Ireland.

‘We are also clear given the damage and harmful impact the protocol continues to have on Northern Ireland, driving up the cost of living, harming our economy, impeding the ability of businesses to trade with our biggest market and fundamentally undermining political stability, undermining the principle of consensus politics.’

However, Ms O’Neill called on both the DUP and British ministers to ‘accept and respect’ the outcome of Northern Ireland’s elections.

‘Brinkmanship will not be tolerated where the north of Ireland becomes collateral damage in a game of chicken with the European Commission,’ she said.

‘Responsibility for finding solutions to the protocol lie with Boris Johnson and the EU.

‘But make no mistake, we and our business community here will not be held to ransom.’

Ms O’Neill warned there could be ‘no excuses’ to prevent an administration being formed at Stormont, adding: ‘There can be no attempt by the DUP or by anyone else to punish the public and leave workers and families high and dry now or in the time ahead.’

Earlier today it emerged that ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’ around the Cabinet table are at odds over Britain taking unilateral action to scrap key parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is reported to be leading a push for the UK to act alone in overriding the Brexit deal. But she is being opposed by Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, according to the Telegraph.

Those Cabinet ministers pushing for unilateral action are said to want a package of measures including ‘red and green lanes’ for goods travelling to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, ‘trusted trader schemes’ to manage hauliers travelling only to Northern Ireland, and heavy legal penalties for those who import goods to the Republic that were meant to remain in Northern Ireland.

But the newspaper said Mr Gove wanted talks with the EU to last ‘longer’ and for the UK to take a ‘slightly softer approach’.

And Mr Sunak was reported to have ‘always had a problem with unilateral action’ because of concerns that it could cause a trade war with the EU that would worsen the cost-of-living crisis.

Boris Johnson’s own view on when to take unilateral action over the Protocol has been described as the ‘million-dollar question’ within Government.

But Downing Street today played down the reports of a Cabinet rift over the Protocol.

When asked whether there are divisions among ministers over proposals to unilaterally scrap the post-Brexit deal, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘I wouldn’t say that at all.

‘I think our preference has always been for a negotiated solution to fix the Protocol and we have been clear that we will take further steps if solutions can’t be found.

‘No decisions have yet been taken on the way forward.’

The spokesman insisted the proposals so far put forward by the European Commission ‘don’t go anywhere near far enough to make the Protocol sustainable’, adding: ‘We believe (they) would take us backwards from where we are today.

‘So, no decisions have been taken. But we do reserve the right to take action.’

Ms Truss has been claimed to believe the EU will ‘never’ back down over its refusal to significantly re-work the Protocol.

And EU vice-president Maros Sefcovic, who is leading Brussels’ negotiations with the Britain on the issue, this weekend showed little appetite for compromise as he warned the UK to be ‘honest about the deal they signed’.

He told Politico that the EU had ‘already shown a lot of flexibility by proposing impactful, durable solutions and we stand ready to continue discussions’.

‘We need the UK Government to dial down the rhetoric, be honest about the deal they signed and agree to find solutions within its framework,’ he added.

Ms Truss and Mr Sefcovic are due to hold fresh talks on the Protocol within days.

Ahead of his talks with Northern Ireland’s parties today, Mr Lewis said there was a need to ‘address the outstanding issues’ relating to the Protocol.

He reiterated the UK Government’s warning that, should ongoing talks with the EU over reform of the Protocol not be successful, Britain could go it alone in tearing up the post-Brexit rules.

‘We want to do that by agreement with the EU, but as we have always made clear, we will not shy away from taking further steps if necessary,’ Mr Lewis said.

Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, today refused to put a timetable on when a decision would be made over the future of the Protocol but confirmed that scrapping the agreement was ‘on the table as one of the options’.

‘I am not going to put an arbitrary figure of a number of days, that would be foolish, I think, on my behalf, but what I will say is that we’re working at pace, we want to get this done as quickly as possible,’ she told Sky News.

‘We want a functioning executive in Northern Ireland and we understand the extreme urgency of this.’

Ms Donelan added: ‘The Northern Ireland Protocol is not working in the way that we had intended it to do so and we’ve been very open and frank about that one … the level of bureaucracy that is being placed on Northern Ireland’s businesses is not acceptable.’

Northern Ireland’s election results have increased speculation over the possibility of Irish unification, although Mr Lewis has moved to dismiss the prospect of a border poll.

The Northern Ireland Secretary, who has the power to call a border poll, played down the chances of a referendum being held.

He highlighted how the nationalist vote has not gone up, and the unionist vote remains higher.

‘Sinn Fein haven’t gained seats, we haven’t seen a growth in the nationalist vote and indeed the unionist vote is still larger and the number of seats held by unionist parties is still larger,’ Mr Lewis told BBC Northern Ireland’s Sunday Politics programme.

‘I think the focus at the moment quite rightly is on getting Stormont back up and running, getting the money that is moving from the UK Government to Northern Ireland out to people in Northern Ireland so we can move forward on domestic issues, get the healthcare reform that people want to see and we want to get the protocol resolved for everyone in Northern Ireland.’