Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
DUP views will never, never, never change
AS Sir Jeffrey Donaldson spoke in the Commons against Brexit’s Protocol, the exasperated looks from the two SDLP MPS directly behind him summed up the feelings of many.
The DUP leader said his party “warned about the consequences”. The same DUP that championed leaving the European Union, and when holding the balance of power at Westminster, sided with Tories pushing for ever harder forms of Brexit.
He warned of the economic impact of the Irish Sea trade deal, just weeks after fumbling in an election debate over statistics that it later transpired showed average grocery prices were lower in Northern Ireland than Great Britain.
There was lecturing about the tenets of cross-community consent under the Good Friday Agreement – from the man who quit the UUP in opposition to the Belfast Agreement.
His colleague Carla Lockhart doubled down on the rhetoric by trying to evoke the late John Hume, an architect of the 1998 peace deal.
She asked what the former SDLP leader would think of his party’s “divisive and majoritarian approach” to the Protocol, prompting a rebuke from SDLP MP Claire Hanna, who responded: “Take John Hume’s name out of your mouth.”
DUP MP Sammy Wilson then called on Ms Hanna to apologise – ignoring how his party colleagues repeatedly talked over the South Belfast representative in the debate.
Boris Johnson has made it clear the Protocol is not being scrapped
BREXIT
There was little mention of “cross-community consent” when a majority in Northern Ireland voted in favour of remaining in the European Union, nor when the DUP propped up the Conservative Government during Brexit negotiations.
When the DUP calls for others to respect Stormont power-sharing, in reality this means maintaining the ability of the largest unionist and nationalist parties to block change.
It is a veto that the DUP as the largest unionist party has wielded for many years.
It blocked support for same-sex marriage. It blocked the commissioning of abortion services for women. It blocked Irish language legislation. It blocked Covid restrictions at a time when case numbers were rising.
This is not power-sharing on the basis of respecting and protecting the facets of two post-conflict communities. It demonstrates the system is badly in need of reform.
It takes no account of the changing dynamics at Stormont after an Assembly election that returned more MLAS unaligned on the constitutional question than
ANGER ever before. The DUP’S approach to its cherished Union is a web of contradictions. This is highlighted once more by its latest blockage in vetoing the restoration of Stormont over the Protocol.
The party cannot countenance Northern Ireland diverging from Great Britain on trade post-brexit but is content to keep the region as a place apart in many other ways.
“The Irish Sea border must go,” the party says, but they would be happy to maintain a sea border on gay marriage, language rights and abortion access.
Like an echoing of DUP founder Ian Paisley’s infamous “never, never, never” across the ages, the party approaches every decision with intransigence.
Each time it results in a standoff, a fudge and a climbdown. And each time there is a little more electoral disillusionment, slowly making the unionist bloc at Stormont ever smaller and inward looking.
The same will happen with the Protocol. It is just a case of when.
There is a point of compromise somewhere between the UK and EU proposals on changes to the trading arrangements.
Even if the UK Government acts unilaterally as it threatened this week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made clear the Protocol is not being scrapped.
Sir Jeffrey said the DUP opposes the “current Protocol”, but his colleague Ian Paisley told MPS that if UK ministers “keep the Protocol, power-sharing isn’t coming back”.
Whether a move on the trading issues takes weeks or months, the question remains whether the DUP can manoeuvre itself into accepting the outcome – or if it will keep saying “no”.