The Conservatives have echoed DUP demands for British government proposals to make direct rule in Northern Ireland more accountable, following yesterday's publication of the fifth International Monitoring Commission (IMC) report.
Shadow Northern Ireland secretary David Lidington said: "More than eight years after the Belfast Agreement, this report shows just how far the republican movement has to go before we can accept their commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic politics."
Mr Lidington went on: "The IMC paints a vivid picture of an organisation that is still recruiting and training, and is up to its neck in a whole range of criminal activities. Until all such activities end for good there can be no question of Sinn Féin ministers sitting in a power-sharing government at Stormont."
And he demanded: "Meanwhile the government should lift the veto it has given Sinn Féin over the political process and bring forward proposals to make direct rule more accountable to the people of Northern Ireland."