Newton Emerson: Two U-turns will leave DUP in a spin

The Democratic Unionist Party has five weeks to perform arguably the biggest U-turn in Northern Ireland's history, and certainly the fastest.

It is hard to see how it will not be overwhelmed by the task.

Unique arrangements for Northern Ireland have always been the only plausible outcome of Brexit, yet the DUP has portrayed this to its voters as a calamity only it could prevent.

Those arrangements will be now be agreed over its head; and it has no choice but to sell them as a success.

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The DUP has lost the balance of power, after very obviously squandering it

The party has not lost all influence at Westminster. Its 10 MPs still matter to a beleaguered minority government and British prime minister Boris Johnson still sees value in unionist endorsement for whatever deal he can cobble together.

But the DUP has lost the balance of power, after very obviously squandering it.

Perversely, a party with no MPs is the British government’s main concern.

The Brexit Party, Nigel Farage’s latest vehicle, must be satisfied – or more accurately, neutralised – for the Conservatives to be confident of winning the next election.

No deal would have accomplished that, but the Commons has ruled it out. So a deal must be sincerely attempted at the European Council meeting in five weeks' time if the United Kingdom is to leave the European Union at the end of October – the test Johnson has set for himself and to which the Brexit Party will hold him.

If there is an extension, the dynamics for a deal will change but the DUP will remain a spectator. Westminster’s indecision has been brought to a head and a majority will be found for Northern Ireland-only arrangements.

The Brexit Party does not care if the price of Brexit is a border down the Irish Sea. Its English nationalism increasingly looks like the opposite of unionism. The DUP has long been aware, in prescient detail, of the danger this poses. Immediately after the 2017 general election, when the DUP was negotiating its confidence-and-supply agreement with Johnson's predecessor Theresa May, it proposed she appoint Farage to the House of Lords or give him a role on her Brexit negotiating team so he would not rebuild his Ukip brand and drag the government towards no deal.

People often look at the mess the DUP has made of Brexit and ask why the party did not see it coming, but it is much worse than that: the DUP saw it all coming and made a mess of it anyway. This is an ominous portent for its ability to turn everything around by next month.

Newly marginalised at Westminster, the party’s world has shrunk back to Northern Ireland where its rivals are circling.

The Ulster Unionist Party has pounced on desperate DUP back pedalling over a sea border for agrifood and other backstop-like arrangements, denouncing it all as unacceptable to the entire unionist population. This sets the UUP up to play the role of Brexit Party within Northern Ireland's political system, as what its criticism will amount to is damning any plausible outcome apart from no deal.

The UUP owes the DUP nothing, of course, but it owes Northern Ireland more than lazy hardline opportunism. Having backed Remain in the EU referendum, it would be responsible and consistent for the UUP to take a “we told you so” line that pressed the DUP to own its mess and clean it up, by making the best of whatever deal is imposed. Unfortunately, on this issue as on so many others, the UUP has abandoned its presumed moderating role.

The DUP’s sensitivity to hardline criticism is bound up with its fear of a loyalist backlash. Loyalist sources have signalled their disquiet about the backstop, with threats of street disorder and warnings of recruitment and re-arming.

Opinion differs on how much of a danger loyalists pose, but there is no doubt they can paralyse the DUP.

It can wind loyalists up but has little or no control over what this might unleash

Often accused of being too closely linked to loyalist paramilitaries, the real problem with the DUP is its links are not close enough. It can wind loyalists up but has little or no control over what this might unleash. If people take to the streets over a Brexit deal, or worse, the DUP will simply stop selling the deal and wait for the PSNI to clean up its mess.

A key DUP objection to the backstop is that it is “undemocratic”. Statements from senior party figures indicate the party will spin a deal as accountable through some form of Stormont input. This makes its Brexit U-turn dependent on performing another enormous U-turn, as devolution can only be restored by revisiting the draft Stormont deal it reached with Sinn Féin in February 2018, only to pull out at the last minute when it could not face selling that to unionist hardliners.

Can the DUP perform both U-turns in short order, all while facing an imminent general election? Precedent suggests it will freeze mid-turn the moment the going gets tough.