DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson must believe in fairy tales
Posted By: September 29, 2023
IRISH CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING
Distributed to Congress by Irish National Caucus
“Brian Feeney continues to speak truth to the DUP, but the DUP refuses to listen. Like White Supremacists in the U.S., they see their dominance slipping away and they cannot handle the truth and cannot accept democracy. The partition of Ireland was constructed on December 23, 1920, by The King-in-Parliament in order to deny democracy in Ireland and to keep the Catholics in the new artificial State of Northern Ireland in a permanent powerless position, and under England’s rule … but ‘the times they are a-changin.’”
—Fr. Sean McManus
DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson must believe in fairy tales
Brian Feeney. Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, September 27, 2023
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson must believe in fairy tales. He’s been peddling them now for seven years at least.
Big boys in England told him, so they must be true. You could leave the EU, its customs union and single market, but still retain free access to European markets.
There would be no need for an Irish Sea border because you could have a hard British border in Ireland; but it would be invisible because it would be monitored by magic devices of wondrous technology hitherto unknown.
You could have a no-deal Brexit which would mean 40,000 job losses here [in Northern Ireland], but that’s OK because he said he could “live with myself”.
One of Donaldson’s many major problems is that his voters believed him, still do. Look at the results in May’s council elections. The DUP are down, but not by much. So how and, most crucially, when, is he going to tell DUP voters it was all fairy tales?
We’re approaching a critical juncture. The DUP’s conference is October 13 – yes, honestly, great choice, Friday 13. Then is a chance to come clean, blame the Brits (fooled us again), admit the Windsor Framework is all he’s going to get, and return to Stormont.
None of that will happen, of course. Not only is he afraid to tell his voters the truth, but the split in the DUP, papered over after the party publicly fell apart in May 2021 at the Crowne Plaza hotel, lies still agape. Donaldson is too weak to face down Ian Óg, Wilson, Poots, Dodds, and their supporters.
There’s more. The operation of the Protocol modified by the Windsor Framework kicks in on October 1: labelling, the Retail Movement Scheme for agri-food, enrolment for the new GB trusted trader scheme. Construction of customs inspection sheds at four ports follows.
The timetable for full operation to be complete by winter 2025 is inexorable. So, Donaldson can’t very well claim in October there’s no sea border while it’s being built around him. He’s led his party into a cul de sac with a customs shed at the end of it.
The British will not offer a ‘get out of jail free’ card either. Westminster is in recess for most of October during the party conference season. It returns on November 7 for the king’s speech, kicking off what will likely be the last session of this Parliament. The North won’t figure.
Here’s the thing. Even if the British promised some meaningless piece of legislation in November it won’t stop, alter, or prevent the Framework’s operation. There’ll still be a border in the Irish sea.
The critical juncture will be in November. If the DUP are still boycotting, they will stay out until after the British general election. The indications are they’ll hang on in the forlorn hope that a Starmer government will make a favorable deal with the EU.
Forlorn hope indeed. The EU will not reopen the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). Maros Sefcovic explained last month that the EU sees a review of the TCA in 2026 as merely a review of its operations. Starmer will not rejoin the single market.
A veterinary agreement will take years to conclude. All 27 members have to agree but many are unhappy about the UK getting special consideration; others don’t trust the UK after the last seven years. Furthermore, the EU is happy with the TCA and is concentrating on expansion east. Brexit is history.
Lurking behind all the speculation about how Donaldson climbs down off his window sill lies the real question for many in the DUP.
The north was created and designed to be run by and for Unionists. How then can the DUP ever reconcile going into an executive with a Sinn Féin First Minister? The reality is that many in his party, and in Unionism as a whole, can’t. For them the Irish Sea border is the pretext for avoiding the will of a majority.
This failed political delinquency Donaldson has led will guarantee the imposition of another shocking draconian budget next April, further impoverishment and dysfunction. He will only succeed in convincing more people that the North is a failed political entity. Hardly something he set out to prove.
