General Election: Ex-DUP policy chief defects to TUV-Reform accusing former party of 'facing two directions' on sea border

It comes despite a new pledge by the DUP this week to oppose EU law and the Irish Sea border, after claims from the party earlier this year that the frontier had been removed.

The News Letter understands that Dan Boucher was still a DUP member until this week, but didn’t feel that the recent change of policy went far enough.

Mr Boucher told fellow TUV-Reform UK candidates that he had “come to the sad conclusion that while there are many wonderful people in the DUP, that it includes some who have always believed, and who continue to believe, that the Protocol presents something of an economic opportunity.

“This means that all too often the party has tried to lead facing in two directions at the same time which has prevented it from providing the leadership that we actually need”.

He has argued in recent days that ‘mutual enforcement’ is a solution to the Irish Sea border conundrum – a proposal Sammy Wilson said the DUP would now pursue. It is also backed by the TUV, and a variation on the policy is supported by the Ulster Unionist Party.

Put simply, mutual enforcement means that authorities either side of the border would enforce the other’s standards where those goods are being exported – removing the need for border checks.

As he was unveiled as the TUV-Reform UK candidate for South Belfast and Mid Down, Mr Boucher said the DUP has “failed to embrace this solution” and said he was “now delighted to be in a party that, having formed its strategic relationship with Great Britain through Reform UK, will now rise to this challenge”.

Asked about the message it would send to a future UK government if TUV candidates lost unionist seats he said “I think that will be unfortunate and I think that we don't want to be in this position”. However, he said it was “an inevitable consequence, sadly, of the fact that the DUP is trying to face in two directions at the same time and I think that there is a need for a realignment”.

He said he hoped his resignation makes people within the DUP who share his views think – and that those people “need to either take back control of their party, or consider whether their future rests somewhere else”.

Any further defections seem highly unlikely at this stage, and Gavin Robinson’s position as leader has been further secured by the new pledge on EU law which has settled rows for now.

The former DUP Director of Policy and Research quit his job in April over the party’s Safeguarding the Union deal – the first and only significant resignation from the party over the issue, which at one point appeared to have the potential to split the party.

He had worked for the DUP since September 2022, after quitting the Conservative Party in protest at its imposition of the post-Brexit trading arrangements on Northern Ireland.

Having seen the legislation which followed the Safeguarding the Union deal, Mr Boucher decided that his position was no longer tenable and resigned, but remained a party member.

A former Tory parliamentary candidate – he also quit that party over the Protocol and moved his young family to Northern Ireland after he started working for the DUP.

Despite the DUP’s agreed position against EU law, there is still a stark policy difference between those in the party who support the current arrangements as a ‘best of both worlds’ opportunity for Northern Ireland – and those who see it is an economic and constitutional disaster for the Union.

However, the new policy has allowed the party to go into the general election on an agreed platform and given more space for critics of the deal to take the fight to the TUV.

The risk is that it will now be dragged into a debate about what arrangements it proposes to replace the Windsor Framework – with no sign that London or Brussels are willing to entertain any changes.

But DUP figures will point to a likely change of power in both capitals after the UK and EU elections as an opportunity for fresh thinking on the issue.

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