Alex Kane: Falling support forces Donaldson’s hand

While the UK and Irish governments - along with EU negotiators - will have read Jeffrey Donaldson’s speech on the Northern Irish protocol with interest, they were not his primary audience. No, his intended audience was unionism, loyalism, the Orange Order, the Loyalist Communities Council (which represents the three paramilitary organisations which backed the Good Friday Agreement) and a younger section of loyalism which has been behind a series of anti-protocol protests over the past few months.

He’s speaking to them because a series of opinion polls since last October has indicated a slump in DUP support from 23 per cent to 13 per cent. Indeed, the latest poll has the party behind the more liberal UUP and the harder line TUV. But with the next election due by May 2022 Donaldson doesn’t have a great deal of time to reverse his party’s fortunes and ensure the DUP retains the role of First Minister, a position it has held since 2007.

When he became leader in June-the third one this year-the general view was that Donaldson would prioritise protecting the Assembly and take a reasonably compromising approach to the protocol. He has always been regarded as a safe pair of hands, a man who prefers the deal to the showdown. And if the DUP had been registering support levels at 20 per cent and above that’s the Donaldson we would have heard.

Donaldson [...] has chosen to throw in his lot with that section of unionism/loyalism which wants to up the ante and provoke a fight with Boris Johnson

But his main task now is to save the DUP and return it to the top dog position within unionism. His personal views on the protocol matter less than the need to tap into voter bases which have been nudging towards Jim Allister’s TUV; a party which seems content enough to permit the collapse of the Assembly as collateral damage in the campaign to dump the protocol.

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So his position on the protocol is now one of outright opposition rather than potential compromise: “There are those who say the Protocol is here to stay and advocate working it and there are some who limit their ambitions to addressing its worst aspects. However, what flows from the protocol is so fundamental and the problems it creates so great that the consequences of adopting such a strategy would damage Northern Ireland. It is not a path we will tread.”

The ‘those’ he refers to is the UUP, whose leader, Doug Beattie, suggested a few days ago the protocol could be managed, partly by means of a new cross-border body. It’s a bold move from Beattie, yet Donaldson is canny enough to realise that it’s an approach which could prove attractive to a section of unionism which doesn’t want to be pushed into another 1974 or 1985 showdown with a British government- both of which delivered nothing for unionism.

He couldn’t risk a middle-ground stance at this point, so he has chosen to throw in his lot with that section of unionism/loyalism which wants to up the ante and provoke a fight with Boris Johnson. The problem with that strategy is it requires Johnson to deliver by dumping the protocol, but there is absolutely no evidence to suggest Johnson can be trusted. Yet the advantage of the strategy is that the voters who have backed the DUP since 2007-and some of whom now seem to be shifting to the TUV-seem to prefer a fight to a compromise. As do the LCC, Orange Order and the neo-loyalist generation which has begun to raise its voice and head.

It's unlikely the UK will do much in the next few months to placate unionism re the protocol

If Donaldson can secure that vote, as well as clip the wings of the TUV, and scare the more traditional base of the UUP, then the DUP has a reasonable chance of heading up the leader board again. But he has to be wary of waiting too long. The longer the protocol remains in place the less the chances are of galvanising protest against it and maximising the anti-protocol vote.

Which means it may suit the DUP’s interests to up the ante, lay down harder demands and then force an election before the end of the year: an election it could do quite well in if there really is the sort of anger against the protocol which the DUP and others claim there is (although I’m inclining to the view the anger may not be as ingrained or widespread as Donaldson hopes).

The other thing worth bearing in mind is that Donaldson wants into the Assembly. In an interview after his speech he talked about the need to ‘refresh’ the mandate. He doesn’t want to hang around on the fringes until next May, with no Assembly seat or ministerial role. He wants to be at the heart of the Executive as First Minister: and he wants there as soon as possible, by way of an election which maximises the DUP’s chances.

It’s unlikely the UK will do much in the next few months to placate unionism re the protocol (especially now that the grace periods have been extended and negotiating timetables made very flexible), so relying on Johnson to bail him out is a very risky strategy. So is forcing an early election. But of the two risky strategies available to him, an early election seems the more likely to return the DUP as the largest party again. And that’s what his speech was all about.

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