Stories
Spare a thought for Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. Since the Northern Ireland Assembly elections in May 2022, he and the DUP party have prevented the restoration of power-sharing at Stormont over their objections to how Northern Ireland is affected by the UK’s Brexit agreement.
In the nine months of stalemate, Sir Jeffrey and the DUP have made a virtue of saying No. Their policy of stubborn resistance can be traced back to 1689 when a group of Apprentice Boys closed the gates of Derry and were prepared to risk starvation rather than allow the entry of forces led by the Catholic king, James II.
But yesterday afternoon Rishi Sunak, the prime minister in the Westminster Parliament where Sir Jeffrey is the DUP’s longest-serving MP, said ‘No More.’
The British government is no longer prepared to let the second largest party in its smallest devolved administration decide the terms and the pace of the UK’s relationship with its nearest and most important trading partner, the EU.
For Sir Jeffrey, his response will decide his place in history. If he eventually rejects the compromise agreement that the British government has struck with the European Commission, he will satisfy some within the DUP support base and others to the right of it. But he will run the risk of confirming that the DUP is a party that can’t support the first principles of democracy.
If he stalls on a decision, holds out for some clarifications and concessions, but then says a triumphant yes, he will take the DUP and unionism into a new space – back into power-sharing but alongside a Sinn Féin first minister.
Ideally, Sir Jeffrey wanted more time to pass before yesterday’s announcement was made. His mindset was akin to that stance of Saint Augustine – give me chastity and temperance but not yet.
Understandably, his party wasn’t open to being involved in negotiations over the weekend as a PSNI officer lay fighting for his life after he was shot by republican dissidents.
But Rishi Sunak wasn’t prepared to cut the DUP any further slack. In his recent trip to Northern Ireland, Sunak showed a different style to his three most recent predecessors, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Liz Truss. He may smile at his news conferences. But in his engagement with the parties, Sunak showed signs of impatience, occasionally veering towards a Dominic Rabb-style short fuse in his dealings with some of his officials.
Sunak can no longer hope that new trade deals with the likes of India and China might lead the UK to the sunlit uplands Utopia, promised during the Brexit Referendum campaign. Ukraine and the new world disorder created by Vladimir Putin have changed all that.
The Conservative party is trailing Labour by more than twenty points in some opinion polls. The UK economy is tanking. The government will never admit that the consequences of Brexit are adding to the mayhem. But a general election must be held before the end of next year. The prime minister knows that if he is to achieve the game-changing economic growth, referenced by Liz Truss and Keir Starmer, he needs a dramatically improved relationship with the EU and access to its market of 450 million consumers.
In the circumstances, short-tempered Sunak ran out of patience with Donaldson and the DUP.
Sunak’s move was inevitable. The next series of developments will decide the success or failure of the London/Brussels initiative in the fourth green field.
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It would be wrong to describe Jeffrey Donaldson as a naysayer. He is hard to succinctly define because he often acts in a contradictory way. He left the Ulster Unionist negotiating team as it prepared to sign-up to the Good Friday Agreement. He helped to undermine David Trimble, the UUP leader. After bringing about Trimble’s demise, he promptly defected to the DUP. He was crucial in helping Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson establish a power-sharing partnership with Sinn Féin. But although he believes in devolved government, after serving briefly as a junior minister in the Stormont administration, he moved to Westminster, full-time and the role of MP for Lagan Valley.
In his London role, Donaldson continued to send out mixed signals. He has a good relationship with many Irish government ministers and officials. Yet he was a key figure in the DUP’s Brexit Referendum campaign involvement, where the party’s Westminster MPs provided the main DUP contribution.
Some within that DUP micro-group were peeved that Jeffrey, the UUP blow-in, got a knighthood for ‘political service’ in 2016.
He didn’t look comfortable, standing on platforms with the likes of TUV leader, Jim Allister, during anti Northern Ireland protocol rallies. He got vile personal abuse on some social media outlets as the DUP refused to participate in power-sharing.
Other claims that an anti-Catholic streak was preventing Donaldson from taking a Deputy First Minister role alongside Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill as First Minister were wide of the mark. After Donaldson got to know Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, they had a good working relationship.
Since the turn of the year, there were signs of the DUP positioning itself for a return to power-sharing, provided its concerns with the Northern Ireland protocol issues were addressed. The reshuffle of its Assembly team, even though the institution remains in mothballs, was significant. Two of the appointments suggested that a new generation is being identified – the pair may be relative unknowns but that could change. Philip Brett, a young MLA for North Belfast, is the new party spokesperson on Infrastructure. David Brooks, Assembly member for East Belfast, takes charge of Promoting NI Engagement with GB/US and North/South relations.
Others relative newcomers given prominent roles include Jonathan Buckley, Joanne Bunting, Pam Cameron and Diane Forsythe. This level of effort and reorganisation does not suggest that the DUP is expecting Stormont and power-sharing to remain on hold in the medium to long term.
Another straw in the wind is the recent level of DUP engagement with ‘interest parties.’ Lines of communication were established with EU officials: in recent weeks Donaldson met ambassadors of several EU member states in London to explain his party’s difficulties with the Northern Ireland protocol. A number of DUP representatives made brief trips to the United States in recent weeks. More engagements are planned for Washington in the period around Saint Patrick’s Day.
But the Sunak/von der Leyen deal won’t be the sole factor influencing Donaldson’s big decision. If the DUP are to take the plunge and give the British prime minister the chance of a new relationship with the EU that he so desperately needs, then Jeffrey Donaldson will make Rishi Sunak pay for it. In practical terms, that translates to finance, large amounts of it, to replenish the coffers of Stormont. All the main parties in the power-sharing administration agree this is a not just a priority but a necessity.
The financial package that Northern Ireland’s parties can squeeze from the British government will be every bit as significant as the conclusions the DUP reaches about the Windsor Framework deal. This will be Stormont’s final chance to extract money from the Conservative government before the next UK general election. Rishi had better be prepared to pay for his high-profile success.
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Ian Paisley junior, the DUP MP for North Antrim, didn’t wait long to tweet that the deal on offer doesn’t go far enough. Sammy Wilson, the MP for East Antrim, took the same approach. That’s entirely predictable. Jim Allister, the TUV leader and the party’s sole member of the Assembly, was quick to raise a query about the “Stormont brake” element of the agreement. Does it amount to a “nationalist veto” at Stormont, he asked. For the measure to have any worth, Jim would require it to be a unionist veto, similar to the one that has kept Stormont closed since the Assembly elections.
After Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen addressed their news conference yesterday afternoon, they accepted questions from a number of journalists. First the British prime minister sought out the BBC. Then RTÉ. It was such a telling moment – John Kilraine of RTÉ, immediately after Chris Mason of the BBC, with no later call to the likes of The Daily Telegraph, the Sun, Sky News or ITV. This was Downing Street, publicly acknowledging its respect for the island next door.
In recent weeks, while Irish government politicians and officials have worked closely with London and Brussels representatives, they have done so discreetly. During their cross-border trips, in public and private engagements with Northern Ireland’s political parties, Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin behaved sensitively, avoiding controversy and accusations of leaking information.
North-South and British-Irish relationships are in a good place.
Last night there were several telling significant contributions in the Westminster chamber, when Rishi Sunak addressed MPs. Theresa May, a former Conservative prime minister, praised the negotiating team for a deal that “will make a huge difference” and said “the best move now for everybody across this House is to support this settlement because that is what is in the best interests of all the people of Northern Ireland.”
Julian Smith, a former Northern Ireland Secretary, said the deal marks “a critical moment in ending three years of instability across Northern Ireland, affecting communities throughout this most fragile part of our country.” He also said that Jeffrey Donaldson and all the other Northern Ireland parties should be given “time and space and encouragement to restore power-sharing and to ensure that political decision-making in Northern Ireland can start as soon as possible”.
Sunak in response looked towards Smith. He thanked him for “not just the job he did as a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland but for his continued passion and devotion to the people of Northern Ireland” and “for the support and advice he has given me in helping us reach the Framework today.”
In January 2020, Smith, the then Foreign Affairs Minister, Simon Coveney, and their officials had worked up the New Decade, New Approach Agreement that restored power-sharing at Stormont. The following month, Julian Smith was sacked by Boris Johnson, his usefulness expended.
Rishi Sunak went out of his way to suggest that Smith’s crafting, drafting and advisory role may help to re-open Stormont a second time.
Jeffrey Donaldson must now decide if this ‘best of both worlds’ option is the DUP’s chance to extricate itself from the mess it created. Even though some unionists equate compromise with ‘sell-out’ and have form in not doing the obvious, Jeffrey may say a guarded yes, eventually.
