Rise in DUP support over protocol is where bad news begins for Donaldson

What looks like good news for the DUP is, in truth, rather bad news.

The party’s support is up again in the latest LucidTalk poll, rising three points to 27 per cent. Growth is being driven by support for the party’s Brexit boycott, backed by 80 per cent of unionists, comprising 31 per cent who want “significant changes” to the Brexit protocol and 49 per cent who want it “scrapped completely” before devolution is restored.

These percentages are effectively unchanged since LucidTalk last asked the question in August. The unionist electorate has settled on firm opposition to the protocol and is rallying behind the DUP to deliver it.

And that is where the bad news begins. There is no chance of the protocol being scrapped completely, nor has Mr Donaldson ever promised it. His definition of ‘significant changes’ is also likely to leave unionists disappointed.

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When he became DUP leader in June last year, Mr Donaldson’s plan was clear; wait for the UK to obtain some concessions on the protocol, spin this as a victory for unionism obtained with the help of DUP pressure, then move swiftly on.

Because the plan was so transparent, opponents had no difficulty alerting unionist voters to it. Mr Donaldson was forced to be increasingly specific about the changes he was demanding and forceful in applying pressure, culminating in the collapse of Stormont last month. All of this makes the plan harder and the unionist electorate is cheering it on. The DUP leader is painting himself into a corner while the polls tip buckets of emulsion over his head.

[ Newton Emerson: The wrong threat is being used against the DUP over its Stormont boycott ]

Selling a deal might have been easier under the previous two prime ministers but Rishi Sunak is plainly keener for a negotiated settlement, meaning unionists will be suspicious of whatever he agrees.

Weeks of gushing from London about good “mood music’” is revealing, when political negotiations with Brussels have yet to begin.

British foreign secretary James Cleverly and Maroš Šefčovič, the EU negotiator, have both mentioned a sea border “green channel” that would have met Mr Donaldson’s requirements a year ago. There is still enough rhetorical wriggle room to fit any likely deal around the ”seven tests” Mr Donaldson has set as party policy.

But surveying the cornered state of the DUP, the hardening of unionist opinion and the way those forces are driving each other, observers are losing faith that Mr Donaldson will ever complete his plan. This suspicion, correct or not, is draining the last dregs of confidence out of Northern politics.

A few months of limbo is just about tolerable while waiting for the DUP to say yes. It is intolerable if the DUP seems bound to say no, casting devolution into limbo indefinitely.

The now widely-held prediction that Mr Donaldson will ‘”bottle it” is an unanticipated problem. Whatever his faults, the DUP leader is not a coward, or risk-averse, or lazy. Even his perceived faults – ambition, scheming, cynicism – should be useful in the shameless U-turn everyone had been expecting.

Mr Donaldson seized the party leadership from Edwin Poots, his fleeting predecessor, in an audacious face-to-face confrontation. Before that, he spent months addressing sceptical crowds at anti-protocol meetings and protests.

He tore the Ulster Unionist Party in half two decades ago over powersharing with Sinn Féin before IRA decommissioning. Then he reinvented himself inside the DUP as a pragmatist and peace processor, setting up businesses with Sinn Féin politicians to promote the Belfast Agreement abroad.

[ Newton Emerson: United Ireland is still in the realm of fantasy as serious questions are avoided ]

Perhaps all these sides of his character will come together again for a protocol deal. Doubts that they will stem in large part from Mr Donaldson’s refusal to resign from Westminster and run for Stormont’s in May’s Assembly election.

This created a sense of abandonment among unionist voters and within his party. Confidence in Mr Donaldson has not recovered and he appears unsure how to rebuild it, weighed down by Brexit baggage – the party’s and his own.

Council elections next May mean the moment of truth for the DUP is coming, whether or not there is an Assembly election after a protocol deal.

“We’ve jumped, you follow,” was what David Trimble told Sinn Féin in 1999.

There will be grim amusement in the UUP if Mr Donaldson shies away from his equally momentous hurdle, but another parallel from that time is more instructive.

As the UUP sank into civil war, the DUP brazenly entered Stormont, took up its seats in the powersharing executive and proceeded to operate the Belfast Agreement in full, while still insisting it was fundamentally opposed to it. Distracted and exhausted opponents soon accepted the dichotomy, which exists to this day, although only the most tedious republican still thinks it worth a jibe.

A sullen repeat of history, with the DUP accepting while rejecting the protocol, is Stormont’s likeliest future.