PETER ROBINSON is overcoming his “difficult year” both personally and politically and is confident of emerging as the leader of “peacetime unionism” and retaining the First Minister’s office after the next election.
Mr Robinson, speaking to The Irish Timesahead of tomorrow's DUP annual conference, believes his party has largely seen off other unionist opponents and is well placed to face the electorate next May.
Reports from various investigations over the coming months will clear away any remaining “nonsense” about his and his wife’s personal affairs, he added. His wife, Iris, is “continuing to improve at home”, although well removed from the public gaze.
“It has been the most difficult period of my whole political life,” he said, “but there are upsides – the extent to which you get support from colleagues. Politics is a bit of a bear pit and it is at a time of difficulty that you test the character of individuals and my respect for some grew enormously during that time.”
He won’t name names but does allude to other politicians “who certainly weren’t going to take any advantage but did more than they needed to in terms of support and sympathy”.
He has no wish to go through another period laden with allegations but adds: “If you don’t go through those difficult times then you perhaps don’t appreciate some of the people around you who are supportive.”
He is looking forward to next May’s Assembly elections and the intervening months when he expects “there will be some reports out which will remove some of the nonsense that’s been going out since the beginning of the year”. The realisation of what he calls “peacetime unionism” – a full 16 years after the paramilitary ceasefires – is affording the DUP an opportunity to broaden its agenda. For all the landmark events of the peace process since the mid-1990s, he believes the defining moment for unionists came much later.
He picks out Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness’s comments following the dissident murders of two British soldiers and a police officer in 2009 in which he described the killers as “traitors”.
“For many unionists that was an indicator that Sinn Féin were taking their responsibilities seriously,” said Mr Robinson. “For many unionists, seeing is believing.”
This year’s two-day DUP conference will be a more upbeat affair, given the turmoil that surrounded the party last year as it prepared for an election in which the party leader lost the Westminster seat he had held for 30 years.
Mr Robinson’s speech will seek to capitalise on the party belief that the DUP’s worst is over now and that it can trumpet its achievements ahead of the next election rather than worrying about being outflanked by unionist opponents.
Far from heading up a dysfunctional executive, he helps lead a five-party coalition – never an easy task – which is warming to its task as the agreement to devolve policing powers showed. “In my view [the Executive] is now operating much more smoothly than at any other time. We’re getting more agreements through now,” he said.