The Democratic Unionist party is to consider ending its two-year boycott of power-sharing in Northern Ireland at a meeting that could make or break Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s leadership.
Donaldson will on Monday night brief the party’s 130-strong executive members about UK government proposals to address unionist concerns over post-Brexit trading arrangements.
He is under pressure from the British and Irish governments to endorse the proposals and recommend a restoration of the Stormont executive, putting him on a collision course with unionist hardliners who say that would weaken Northern Ireland’s position the UK.
Donaldson is to unveil details of a deal negotiated with Rishi Sunak’s administration, which wants him to end an impasse that has paralysed Northern Ireland politics and raised doubts about the viability of devolution.
The DUP collapsed Stormont in February 2022 in protest at checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, leaving civil servants to run the region on a form of auto-pilot. A fiscal crisis and crumbling public services have led to mass strikes, with transport workers due to halt bus and train services again on Thursday.
Dublin and London, as well as most other Northern Ireland parties and unions, want Stormont revived. However, factions within the DUP, some loyalists and the small Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party want the DUP to continue the boycott unless the so-called Irish Sea border is removed.
Unverified leaks about the deal suggest Downing Street has offered to limit the UK’s active divergence from EU rules on traded goods when that would affect Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland stayed within the EU single market for goods after Brexit so the EU requires controls on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain. Another mooted change is renaming the green lane the UK internal market lane.
The meeting of executive members may pit Donaldson supporters against rebels but leave Stormont’s fate unresolved. The BBC reported there was no planned meeting for party officers, who had the authority to sign off on a deal.
In an impassioned speech at Westminster last week, Donaldson said he had received threats from fellow unionists but would not be bullied. The DUP reported the incidents to the police.
The County Down Orange lodge, which includes former DUP politicians, urged Donaldson to hold out for full elimination of the sea border, which it warned could pave the way to Irish unity.
A separate warning came in a paper jointly authored by the unionist and Brexiter advocates Lady Kate Hoey, Ben Habib, Jamie Bryson and Jim Allister. “The perversion and constitutional obscenity of a partitioning border in the Irish Sea would be given permanency through its acceptance by the DUP, if they return to Stormont now,” it said.
Sinn Féin’s leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said that if the DUP did not revive power-sharing London and Dublin needed to intervene. “People have been very patient, the time for action was long past,” she told RTÉ. “If they continue to delay and leave us in this limbo it’s time for both governments to step in.”
