DUP conference: Jeffrey Donaldson delivers case for Stormont return to party faithful

Overflow car parks were in operation outside a Belfast hotel on Saturday morning to cope with the arrival of hundreds of DUP delegates and a children’s rugby match.

A queue snaked its way round the top floor of the Crowne Plaza where, after weeks of speculation about the party gearing up to re-enter Stormont, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson did the rounds shaking hands ahead of his keynote conference speech.

“There’s a buzz alright,” said a young councillor as MLAs posed for selfies behind him.

Another veteran member tilted his head in the direction of the hotel ballroom – the setting for the day’s addresses – and whispered: “It’s dead as Hector in there ... flattest conference I’ve been to in years.”

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Asked for his thoughts on the DUP’s rumoured return to powersharing after collapsing the institutions 20 months ago, he replied: “No chance, not with some senior party figures so against it ... but we’ll see what Jeffrey has to say in his speech.”

Others disagreed: “I think it’s 50/50. It’s a strategy that’s working for us in the short-term but at some point we will have to go back in. When, I don’t know.”

In what was widely anticipated as a speech that would give “soft signalling” about the party’s commitment to devolution, Donaldson delivered.

During his 40-minute address, he spoke of his “belief” in a powersharing government and shot down those who argued that direct rule by Westminster was the “better option”.

During periods when Northern Ireland was governed by Westminster, “time and time again” laws were imposed “not in tune” with “our needs and wishes”, delegates were told.

[ Stormont powersharing ‘essential’ in securing NI’s place within the UK, DUP says ]

“You cannot on the one hand repeatedly condemn successive (UK) governments for letting us down and then argue with credibility that we are better off ruled directly by those who do not really understand what makes this place tick,” he said.

Getting Stormont back makes “the best case” for protecting Northern Ireland’s future in the UK, Mr Donaldson insisted, before lambasting republicans for making a case for a united Ireland by “perpetuating myths” that we are living a in a “failed and ungovernable political entity”.

“Those who believe that a united Ireland is around the corner, that it is inevitable, and that Northern Ireland within the union will cease to exist are entirely wrong,” he said.

Referring to “when” Stormont returns at the latter end of the speech, there was a muted response from the conference audience.

Instead, loud applause and “hear, hear” erupted when the DUP leader warned the party “will not be bullied or threatened by anyone” – an apparent reference to hardline loyalists opposed to an Irish sea border – on the issue of resolving post-Brexit trading arrangements amid what are understood to be final-stage negotiations with the UK government on the Windsor Framework agreement.

While confirming progress has been made following months of talks on the framework deal that replaced the controversial Northern Ireland protocol, Mr Donaldson also stressed the party will “not be afraid to say no” if any UK government offer does not address its “fundamental concerns”.

Despite the reiteration of the DUP’s devolutionist credentials, no time frame was given for a return to Stormont.

However, the Dublin and UK governments will welcome the soundings given by Donaldson as a significant step in breaking the deadlock.

“He’s laying the ground,” one insider commented after the speech; “it was never going to be anything dramatic because it would be too risky for Jeffrey to do so. He couldn’t give hard signalling but the soft clues were there.

“The DUP know that the Windsor Framework is here to stay, that it can’t be shifted in the way there was with the Northern Ireland protocol when they genuinely believed they could change the protocol – and they were right on that.”

With a general election expected to take place next year, there are also concerns about potential losses if the political deadlock continues after the party suffered a humiliating blow in the 2019 polls when former deputy DUP leader Nigel Dodds lost his seat to Sinn Féin’s John Finucane.

Current DUP deputy leader and East Belfast MP Gavin Robinson – who made a stinging attack on Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker during his conference speech on Saturday, branding him the “12-hour candidate for PM ... the Private Pike of NI politics” – will face a serious challenge by the Alliance Party for his Westminster seat.

If a deal is struck between the UK government and the DUP over the post-Brexit trading impasse in the coming weeks, can it be sold internally in the face of opposition from party grandees Sammy Wilson and Dodds?

“With difficulty yes,” another observer commented following the standing ovation for Jeffrey Donaldson’s speech, “because I think there is a recognition that the DUP has nowhere else to go but Stormont. Ultimately they’ve run out of road.”