A fresh Stormont Assembly election will take place in due course, the Secretary of State has insisted.
Amid a confusing afternoon in central Belfast which saw the press corp assembling for a briefing, Chris Heaton-Harris called the poll following the passing of a deadline for a power-sharing Executive to be restored. However, he has not yet given a date for the election.
Mr Heaton-Harris said he will provide an update on calling an election for the Assembly next week, adding talks with Stormont parties will continue but he has “limited options ahead of me”.
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He added: “I have listened to the party leaders, I am going to talk to them all again next week. But I will be calling an election.
“Nearly all the parties who have been saying this won’t help the situation actually signed up to the rules that make this situation happen.
“Why call it now? Because I am legally bound to do so.” I have had lots and lots of talks with all the parties and will continue to do so.
“I hear it when parties say that they really do not want an election at all but nearly all of them are parties who signed up to the law that means I need to call an election.
“So you’ll hear more from me on that particular point next week.”
The minister also told reporters he could rule out any joint authority approach. He said: “I also want to address those who have talked about joint authority.
“It is something that we will simply not consider. It is not based on the consent mechanism that is threaded through the Good Friday Agreement.”
“So we are where we are. I have limited options ahead of me.”
He denied his decision not to call an election immediately was a U-turn, adding: “I am still going to be calling an election.
“I completely understand that the big impasse for the unionist community is what is going on with the protocol.
“But as I continually say, the atmosphere in those talks is completely changed in recent weeks and I am optimist and I really do believe that we can get somewhere on those too.”
In response, Sinn Fein's Michelle O'Neill said of Mr Heaton-Harris: “Today, he is doing a bizarre u-turn, one of which he obviously communicated to the media in advance of speaking to the local parties, from my understanding at least.
“I think just think it is bizarre, it reflects the chaotic nature of the Tories, it is more dysfunction, it is spilling into our politics.
"But you see for the workers and families tonight and the businesses that are struggling, the people here that are left without an Assembly, an Executive, there is not even a caretaker minister in place and we have a situation tonight where people just don’t know what is going to happen next.”
The six-month legislative timeframe to re-establish the devolved institutions since the last election in May expired after midnight.
With no ministerial Executive in place, the UK Government assumed a legal responsibility to call another election.
Mr Heaton-Harris said he was "extremely disappointed" that an Executive has not been re-formed.
He tweeted: "The people of Northern Ireland deserve a fully-functioning devolved government.
“Today Stormont could be taking decisions to ease the challenges people face. Instead, the legal duty to act falls to me as Secretary of State."
The DUP has been blocking the restoration of Stormont in protest against the Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol.
Stormont ministers, who had been operating in a caretaker capacity since the Assembly collapsed earlier this year, also ceased to hold office at midnight.
Responsibility for running devolved departments will now pass to senior civil servants, although their powers are limited.
The DUP has said it will not resume power-sharing until decisive action is taken to remove the protocol's economic barriers on trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
The UK Government has vowed to secure changes to the protocol, either by a negotiated compromise with the EU or through proposed domestic legislation.
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told BBC Radio Ulster: "We've had six months in which to do something about the protocol, and during those six months we have had three Prime Ministers, we have had the Government changed often and we haven’t seen the progress that is needed.
"I think the Government would be within its rights to say, given that those six months have elapsed and progress hasn’t been made, that we need a further period to sort this out, get a solution on the protocol that restores Northern Ireland’s place within the UK internal market and that will see the institutions restored immediately."
Sinn Fein MLA Conor Murphy said the DUP's actions were "harming only the people that they represent".
He dismissed the idea that the DUP protest was exerting any pressure on Downing Street to act over the protocol.
He said: "The chaos and the infighting that is going on within the Tory government means their focus is entirely on themselves, and if there is a negotiation with the EU, that will take place because the British government want it to take place not because the DUP are punishing the people of the north by preventing them having their own institutions."
The last Assembly election in May saw Sinn Fein overtake the DUP to become the largest party for the first time.
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