It has been nearly two years since the last elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly. Sinn Féin, for the first time, emerged as the largest party, with 27 of the 90 seats, two ahead of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). But the assembly has only met four times since then. Business cannot proceed until a speaker is elected, and the DUP has consistently refused to take part in the cross-community process of choosing one. Now, 21 months later, the DUP has finally agreed to a deal with the UK government to restore power-sharing to Stormont.
The party had boycotted the assembly because of its opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol, which allowed Northern Ireland access to the European single market after Brexit but required customs checks on goods coming into Northern Ireland from Great Britain. This new border in the Irish Sea has been a red line for the DUP, an unacceptable division within the United Kingdom. It believes it to be in breach of Article VI of the Acts of Union 1800 which guarantees the same rights ‘in respect of trade and navigation in all ports and places in the United Kingdom’.
The DUP has always thrived on a strange kind of beleaguered supremacist victimhood, hyper-sensitive to threats
That same internal border, and the province’s inclusion in the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, is a non-negotiable condition of single market access. As Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, asserted almost casually when the Windsor Framework was unveiled in 2023, ‘The ECJ is the ultimate jurisdiction for the single market, that is natural.’
The UK government has, until now, found it impossible to persuade the DUP and its leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, to alter their stance. The party is steeped in a history of intransigence, from its creation by the Rev. Ian Paisley in 1971; the joke used to run that Paisley’s wedding day was the last time he had said ‘yes’.
Then suddenly there was a flurry of activity. Last week it became clear that the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, had offered the DUP a new deal to participate in the assembly and the devolved administration. On Friday, Timothy Johnston, the party’s chief executive, announced a meeting of the full executive for Monday, at which Donaldson would give a ‘detailed update… on the current political situation’.
On Monday afternoon, Donaldson met with some of his fellow MPs and peers at the DUP’s headquarters in East Belfast, followed by a convention of the 130-strong executive in County Down. A press conference for Donaldson to address the media was scheduled after the executive meeting. Its start time slipped later and later into the night, and the leader finally emerged just before 1.00 am. He announced that his party’s executive had agreed a deal by which they would restore devolution in return for legislation at Westminster to protect the Acts of Union, and ‘remove checks on goods moving within the UK and remaining in Northern Ireland’.
These are early days for the new deal. Donaldson talked about confidence and determination, but he also made it clear that the success of the deal was ‘subject to’ the actions of the UK government. Nevertheless, the Northern Ireland secretary, underlining his commitment, anticipated that nominations will be made to a new executive today. A Democratic Unionist agreeing to serve alongside Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill as deputy first minister – the two posts are technically joint heads of government – will disprove the suspicions of many that the party of Paisley had simply been unable to countenance a Sinn Féin-led executive.
So how has the circle been squared? The key seems to lie in Donaldson’s announcement that there will be no checks on goods completing their journey in Northern Ireland. It follows that there will be procedures for goods which are passing through Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland or elsewhere. Are these to be distinguished by self-declaration? Or will there be a preliminary ‘check’ which is somehow deemed not to count? This process, and the way in which the DUP is able to present it, will be a huge part of winning widespread Unionist support for the agreement.
A generous reading is that Donaldson has accepted a practical approach which concedes a theoretical point – that the jurisdiction of the ECJ still exists – to achieve much broader real-world goals. The DUP can now begin to talk about everyday policy issues like the economy and public services. There is some visceral opposition within the party, but the membership must decide what is more urgent – for them and for Northern Ireland. Donaldson’s view seemingly is that the priorities are functioning institutions and the restoration of ministerial control.
Donaldson came to the leadership of the DUP in June 2021 unopposed. But there had been another leadership election only 25 days before, in which he had been defeated 19-17 by Edwin Poots. He is socially conservative but, in relative terms, more mainstream than the wing of the party Poots belongs to (Donaldson is a member of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland while Poots, a Young Earth creationist who rejects evolution, belongs to the Paisley-founded Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster).
The DUP could choose to see Donaldson’s decision as stepping away from intricate constitutional and identitarian disputes, and focusing on the challenges which Northern Ireland faces in economic, commercial, industrial and social terms. But the party has always thrived on a strange kind of beleaguered supremacist victimhood, hyper-sensitive to threats and prepared for betrayal at any moment.
There has only been a functioning executive at Stormont for 25 months in the last seven years. If the current institutions are to work at all in their present form, and that is not inevitable, this must surely be the last chance to govern Northern Ireland as a normal society. What the DUP, as well as Sinn Féin, Alliance, the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP, now has to do is find a way to connect with the electorate outside crisis mode. All the parties need to do is show the voters, in essence, what ‘normal’ looks like. That would be a generational accomplishment for all the people of Northern Ireland.
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