Alex Kane: Donaldson embarks on a huge political and electoral gamble

When Jeffrey Donaldson became DUP leader last June there was a gentle sigh of relief in London, Dublin and Brussels. They thought it meant an end to the turmoil which had engulfed the party in January and believed he – always regarded as a "reasonable, safe pair of hands" – would bring much needed stability.

The problem, of course, is that Donaldson was taking charge of a party which hadn’t even come close to healing the wounds opened during the toppling of Arlene Foster. Worse, most of those who had supported Edwin Poots’s ousting of Foster were extremely angry that Donaldson’s supporters had "plunged the knife" within hours of Poots having been appointed as her replacement. There was no sense of them wanting to be won over by him.

So the party remains deeply divided and has reached the point at which it doesn’t even try to pretend otherwise. For 50 years it was almost impossible to get any information from any DUP member or representative: it was as if they feared they had been microchipped in their sleep and party headquarters was monitoring their every movement, conversation and phone call. Nowadays journalists and columnists are beating off their leakers, briefers and score-settlers, while the press office has resorted to what might be described as an undignified, screaming-into-a-beanbag silence.

By early September Donaldson had realised he wasn’t going to be able to restore harmony or repair the damage which had been done and decided it would be better to ignore it and, instead, prepare the party for the election due in May by rallying around the one thing which united it – opposition to the protocol. On the 9th he made a speech in which he threatened to bring down the Executive if the British government didn’t resolve the protocol "problem".

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It is a threat he repeated a dozen or more times over the next four months, even telling Liz Truss (the UK’s foreign secretary and EU negotiator) two weeks ago that January 31st was now his final deadline for movement. So, for all his attempts to sound tough on Thursday afternoon – when he announced the withdrawal of Paul Givan as First Minister – the fact remains that his hand was forced by the continuing failure of the British government to help him by either dumping the protocol entirely or, at the very least, triggering Article 16. The British government will not want to announce anything on the protocol now which could be seen to sway one side or the other before the election.

The one thing that would have helped Donaldson most is the one thing the Conservatives have been most reluctant to give him. That must hurt. It will also worry him.

Thursday’s action was also forced on him because private polling by the party indicated that increasing numbers of unionists were fed up with threats to collapse the Assembly not being followed through. And there were also concerns that the rise of both the UUP (pragmatic in its approach to the protocol) and TUV (who want it removed entirely) in recent polls was largely a consequence of the DUP’s perceived dithering and "empty threat gestures" approach to the protocol. In other words, he had to be seen to really and immediately up the ante rather than just talk about it.

But this naturally cautious man knows he has now embarked on a huge political and electoral gamble. He has no answer to the question which will probably eclipse every other question during the coming election campaign: If British governments have done nothing to help the DUP since June 2017 (when the confidence and supply agreement was reached with Theresa May) why do you think anything will be different just because you have threatened the stability of the Assembly?

Donaldson will also worry that, for all their concerns about the protocol, a lot of the DUP’s potential voters might be more concerned by huge rises in oil, gas, electricity, petrol and food costs (along with rising inflation and lengthening waiting lists for hospital treatments).

He has another problem too. Polls have Sinn Féin favourite to become the largest party overall (and collapsing the Assembly may even galvanise its voter base), so he could face a quadruple whammy in May: unionist overall vote falls; Sinn Féin become largest party; unionists don’t have an overall majority in Assembly; and Sinn Féin has dibs on the First Minister title.

So what Donaldson needs, more than anything else, is the return of the DUP as the largest party; as the party representing the overall majority of unionist votes and seats; and himself entitled to the role of First Minister.

Failure to deliver that outcome could be catastrophic for the DUP and maybe even his leadership. Right now he needs personal luck and internal party stability. Both have been in short supply lately.

Alex Kane is a commentator based in Belfast. He was formerly director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party