THE NEW POWER BROKER
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party hold the balance of power in the new Parliament. Who are they?
Where did the DUP come from?
The party was formed in 1971, in the early years of the Troubles, by the Rev. Ian Paisley, a fundamentalist Protestant preacher. Paisley was ferociously opposed to Northern Ireland’s civil rights movement, which in the late 1960s had begun to challenge discrimination against the Catholic minority – particularly in housing, jobs and in Northern Ireland’s government. Paisley set up a new party because he thought that the civil rights movement was a Trojan horse for a wider Irish republican rebellion, and that the ruling Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) was too inclined to compromise.
What did the new party stand for?
It represented a working-class Protestant revolt against the UUP, which was rooted in Northern Ireland’s middle- and upper-class unionists and tended to be led by Old Etonians, such as Terence O’neill and James Chichester-clark. For some 30 years from its inception, the DUP was the party of “rejectionist” protest against any bid to broker a deal between Protestant unionists and Catholic nationalists – starting with the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973 (which briefly led to a power-sharing cabinet of the UUP alongside the nationalist SDLP). Paisley denounced the Anglo-irish Agreement of 1985, which gave the Irish government an advisory role in Northern Ireland, with the words: “We say, never, never, never, never!”
How did religion influence the DUP?
Paisley had also founded his own Free Presbyterian Church, and his ultra-conservative evangelical perspective remained at the core of the DUP. Paisley saw Irish republicanism as a Catholic plot designed to “exterminate Protestantism”, and inveighed against not only the Pope (interrupting a speech by John Paul II to declare, “I denounce you, Antichrist!”); and homosexuality (launching a campaign to “Save Ulster from Sodomy”), but also the European Union – which he also regarded as a Catholic conspiracy.
Did the DUP have links to paramilitary groups?
While rejecting political violence, and keeping their distance from the main loyalist terrorist groups, Paisley and the DUP flirted with paramilitary involvement. In 1981, he set up the Third Force, a Protestant loyalist “defensive militia” whose purpose was to fight alongside the Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary to defeat the IRA, while still acting within the law (its men marched brandishing not guns, but firearms licences). It didn’t last long, and was dismissed by other loyalist paramilitaries as the “Third Farce”. Paisley and DUP colleagues such as Peter Robinson were later involved in Ulster Resistance, another paramilitary group, which was accused of gunrunning. It, too, soon crumbled.
How did the DUP rise to power?
Essentially, as a result of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The DUP was the only major party to oppose the deal’s plan for devolved powersharing between unionists and nationalists. Paisley, who vowed he’d never sit down with the “bloodthirsty monsters” of Sinn Féin, was able to represent widespread unionist doubts over aspects of the deal, notably the early release of jailed terrorists. In Northern Ireland Assembly elections in 2003 and in the general election of 2005, the DUP eclipsed the UUP to become the largest unionist party. Paisley then astonished observers by making a deal himself with Sinn Féin, signing the St Andrews Agreement of 2006 and becoming first minister, with former IRA commander Martin Mcguinness as his deputy.
How different is the party today?
Before Paisley stepped down, in 2008, the DUP began to modernise itself. Now the largest party in the Stormont Assembly (with 28 of 90 seats) and the largest Northern Irish party at Westminster (with ten of 18 MPS), it has become, to an extent, the voice of mainstream unionism. About a quarter of its members were once UUP members – including its current leader, Arlene Foster, who is an Anglican, not a Presbyterian. Some view it as not that different from the Tory party: both strongly support the monarchy, the Union, Trident, Nato and the Armed Forces. On economic issues, the DUP is actually slightly to the Conservatives’ Left: it wants higher public spending and protection for the pensions triple lock. It campaigned for Leave but is committed to a “soft” Irish border.
So why are some worried about the DUP’S influence?
Because it remains deeply embedded in the sectarian fabric of Northern Ireland. A 2014 study suggested that 31% of its members belong to Paisley’s tiny Free Presbyterian Church, and a majority would prefer their children to attend Protestant-only schools. More than half its representatives are members of the Orange Order (see box). The party has vetoed gay marriage (though not civil partnerships) and opposes any attempt to legalise abortion in Northern Ireland. Several of its representatives have expressed support for the teaching of creationism in schools. There are also fears that a TORY-DUP deal could make the return of devolved government – currently suspended – impossible. The British and Irish governments are supposed to act as “honest brokers” in the power-sharing process; critics, including Sinn Féin, have argued that the Conservatives cannot be impartial if they are reliant on
the DUP for their majority.
Why is Stormont suspended?
The immediate cause was the “cash for ash” scheme, a badly designed green-energy incentive – set up when Arlene Foster was trade minister – which led to some people being paid simply to heat their properties, and which is projected to run £490m over budget. Foster’s refusal to step down over the scandal prompted the late Martin Mcguinness to resign as deputy first minister. But there have also been underlying tensions over Brexit (which the DUP backed and Sinn Féin opposed); legal recognition for the Irish language; and over a new settlement for unsolved Troubles cases. Fresh elections in March failed to resolve the situation: they simply narrowed the gap between the DUP and Sinn Féin to just one seat.