The DUP has been under pressure from unionist rivals and some within its own ranks over how to respond to the row over Drumcree.
Last week, DUP MP Carla Lockhart stepped down from the party’s officer board over their leader Gavin Robinson not withdrawing Little-Pengelly to force O’Neill from their joint Stormont office.
On Thursday Lockhart said she will follow her “own course” if the party does not seek to remove Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill as Stormont’s first minister.
Robinson said that while O’Neill and her party colleagues “should be punished, that does not include punishing the rest of Northern Ireland”.
The Upper Bann MP, who last week quit the DUP’s ruling officer board in opposition to party leader Gavin Robinson’s approach, outlined her position in a letter to colleagues which she later posted on Facebook.
Other DUP representatives including assembly member Diane Forsythe have since backed Lockhart’s calls for O’Neill to be “removed from office”.
On Tuesday, Forsythe said that in the absence of such “meaningful action”, official engagements through the joint Executive Office should be stopped immediately as a “bare minimum”.
On Wednesday, a second DUP assembly member called for O’Neill to go.
Maurice Bradley said removing O’Neill “would not, in itself, require the Assembly to collapse”.
Bradley said the “attitude displayed by senior Sinn Féin representatives in the aftermath” of the dispute “have caused widespread anger and concern”.
He said the “arrogance and defiance demonstrated by repeated declarations that Michelle O’Neill is ‘going nowhere'” was “concerning”.
Last week, a court heard Police Service of Northern Ireland intelligence information that dissidents may have mounted gun attacks on police had officers cleared a path for the parade.
Bradley’s statement added: “No one is above the law, regardless of their political position. There cannot be one standard for ordinary citizens and another for those holding the highest offices in Northern Ireland.”
