Ben Lowry: The DUP made two big mistakes when it agreed to return to Stormont

By Ben Lowry
Published 1st Jun 2024, 06:41 BST
On that grimmest of milestones, an apologist for the IRA becoming first minister of Northern Ireland, DUP MLAs smile as Paul Givan turned his fire on Jim Allister in the reconvened Stormont assemblyOn that grimmest of milestones, an apologist for the IRA becoming first minister of Northern Ireland, DUP MLAs smile as Paul Givan turned his fire on Jim Allister in the reconvened Stormont assembly
On that grimmest of milestones, an apologist for the IRA becoming first minister of Northern Ireland, DUP MLAs smile as Paul Givan turned his fire on Jim Allister in the reconvened Stormont assembly
​The DUP this week pivoted away from its Safeguarding the Union deal to restore Stormont this year.

(Click here to read Ben Lowry’s main column about the US presidential election: ‘The nightmare of a choice between Biden and Trump’)

​There is little sign of that in Gavin Robinson’s essay on page 7 of today’s News Letter (click here to read it: ‘Making NI work is how we will secure our place within UK’). If the party position has much changed, then I make two observations.

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The first is that the DUP made a serious mistake in massively over selling the deal earlier in the year. When Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said that the Irish Sea border had gone, a host of people believed him.

This merely set the scene for something that immediately began to happen: disappointment as the scale of the barrier begins to become clear.

It cannot be said enough: a border is not just the absence of checks, it is the fact of legal change at the frontier, as Ireland understood. It would not accept legal change at the Irish land border, even if the UK promised to have no checks there.

The second observation I make is that the DUP made a terrible blunder when Paul Givan, and then Gordon Lyons, turned so viciously on Jim Allister on the first day of the recalled assembly (Click here to read Ben Lowry’s account of those verbal onslaughts against the TUV leader).

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At the moment of that grimmest of milestones, the installation as first minster of an unapologetic defender of the IRA terror that inflicted so much damage on NI, the DUP attacked Mr Allister, a man who could have spent the last 20 years earning a fortune at the bar but instead devoted it to unionism.

• Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter editor

Related topics:DUPBen LowryJim AllisterJeffrey Donaldson