It’s remarkable that Arlene Foster lasted this long

Arlene Foster’s spell as leader of the Democratic Unionist party is over. Today, Foster announced that she is stepping down as party leader on 28 May, and resigning her position as First Minister by the end of June. Her resignation came after a letter, signed by three quarters of the party’s MLAs alongside some MPs, was submitted to its chair Lord Morrow calling for her departure. In what is the most dramatic case of unionist infighting since Foster herself helped destabilise David Trimble’s leadership of the Ulster Unionists in the early 2000s, moves are also afoot to remove her erstwhile deputy Nigel Dodds. Several of her most senior advisers, including the party’s chief executive and director of communications, are also facing the chop.

The catalyst behind this mutiny is supposedly Foster’s abstention on a vote last week in the Northern Ireland Assembly seeking to ban gay conversion therapy. This abstention has angered the evangelical ‘Save Ulster from Sodomy’ rump, which still holds sway in the party’s membership and upper echelons.