Politicians should make a “collective appeal to contain” the parading dispute in Drumcree, according to the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader.

Jon Burrows called on other parties to join him in emphasising the need to “resolve the dispute and not multiply it”.

It is the twelfth day of deadlock between residents of the Garvaghy Road and the local district lodge of the Orange Order over the proposed march in Portadown, County Armagh.

On Wednesday, a representative for the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition (GRRC) said the disagreement was “no longer just about the Garvaghy Road” after a meeting with 11 other nationalist residents’ groups.

The other groups involved included the Bogside Residents Group in Londonderry, and the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community, and Crumlin Road and Ardoyne Residents Association, both of which are in Belfast.

After the meeting, Linda O’Neill of the GRRC said: “At the minute the support from all over Ireland, particularly all of the other communities in the north of Ireland coming here and supporting us, are propping up our community right now; we have never seen support and solidarity like it.

“The Orange Order needs to take responsibility, and so do the Parades Commission for making this issue bigger than the Garvaghy Road, this is no longer just about the Garvaghy Road, this is about all of us.”

The Portadown District Lodge have said they are prepared to take further legal action to try to allow the 35 Orangemen to march from Drumcree along the route approved by the Parades Commission.

Claire Hanna, leader of the SDLP, also acknowledged the need to “get a grip” of the Drumcree dispute before it “engulfs the wider political system”.