Dismissing DUP concerns as a political ruse is counterproductive

Will the DUP serve with a Sinn Féin First Minister once its protocol issues are resolved?

The party insists it will.

Paul Givan, DUP first minister until his resignation in February, was unambiguous when asked by UTV on Monday.

“Yes,” he said. “We will appoint a deputy first minister”.

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But the damage has been done. Having refused throughout the election campaign to answer that simple question, there is widespread doubt the DUP will ever accept “second place” to Sinn Féin.

The UUP also refused to confirm if it would nominate a Deputy First Minister in the run-up to the May 5 election. Like the DUP, it would only say it was fighting to win. This cliché was initially excusable but it was absurd to persist with it for weeks as it became an election-defining issue. The DUP’s apparent rejection of democracy drove voters to Sinn Féin, while the UUP’s apparent tagging along discredited new leader Doug Beattie’s liberalising project.

In reality, the UUP was looking over its shoulder at the DUP and the DUP was looking over its shoulder at TUV leader Jim Allister, as he taunted unionist rivals about providing “a bridesmaid” to Sinn Féin.

The votes were still being counted when Givan conceded it had all been unnecessary.

Public scepticism

On May 6th, he told the BBC his party would “respect the result” and return to government in due course. Other senior party figures have repeated this since. But public scepticism is understandable with the DUP still refusing to go back to work. The party says it is merely honouring its election pledge to block the executive over the protocol. However, it has gone on to block the assembly as well, by refusing to nominate a speaker. It took this unexpected step after a post-election statement from Allister, proving the DUP is still looking over its shoulder. Almost one in five unionist voters gave the TUV a first preference.

Doubt over the DUP’s intentions takes two broad forms. The most sceptical are those who believe the party will never serve alongside a republican first minister and that the protocol is being used as an excuse.

This view is mistaken: the DUP is desperate to revive Stormont and has a consistent and realistic protocol landing zone, with a conceptual ‘green channel’ for goods staying inside Northern Ireland. This would allow it to claim the sea border had been removed within the UK, despite substantial checks remaining. Everyone involved in protocol and Stormont negotiations realises this is the DUP’s position. Swathes of the public do not share that certainty, however, and that alone has a negative political impact.

It means unionist concerns about the protocol are not seen as genuine, undermining efforts to address them. There is a remarkable consensus across all five main Stormont parties that the protocol needs big improvement through a “green channel” model – even the EU refers to its solutions as an “express lane”.

But it is difficult for Sinn Féin and the SDLP to help promote this consensus when so many nationalist voters see it all as a ruse and an insult.

The second broad suspicion is more complicated and plausible. The DUP might be desperate to return to Stormont and sincere about a protocol solution, but it also wants another election before it goes back, using a protocol “win” to regain its place as the largest party. The campaign for this election would focus heavily, once again, on preventing a republican first minister.

Even the DUP may not know if this will be its strategy. It is likely to be awaiting protocol developments and public reaction over the coming months. That warrants serious concerns about a near-term election, shared across the political establishment. This is not conducive to trust or deal-making at Stormont, where other parties wonder why they should work to revive an executive if the DUP is just going to send everyone back to the polls. Even more disastrously, especially from a unionist perspective, the EU is concerned about offering a protocol deal that would immediately be used as an electoral weapon.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, has played an absurd game of musical chairs with his Stormont and Westminster seats, co-opting a colleague into the former so he can hang on to the latter. It appears he cannot bring himself to be deputy first minister, or he is holding out for another assembly election, or both. This underscores every suspicion and it all comes back to the DUP’s perceived reluctance to facilitate a Sinn Féin first minister.

The SDLP and Alliance have proposed renaming the top two titles “joint first ministers”, a term Sinn Féin used until it won May’s election. Revealingly, the DUP rejected this proposal before May and has not publicly changed its mind.

It seems it wants the symbolic race for the top title to continue. Perhaps it needs that race now more than ever.