The DUP’s dangerous game in Northern Ireland

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s leadership of the DUP has been characterised as something of a phoney war against the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) – until now.

After months of threatening to pull down the Northern Ireland executive should he and his party not be satisfied with progress on removing the protocol (which creates checks on goods between Britain and Northern Ireland) Donaldson has made his move. Paul Givan, something of a lame duck in his role as First Minister, has resigned and left his post at midnight. Because of the intricacies of Stormont, the deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Fein will also depart but junior ministers will remain in post until an election.

Speaking afterwards, Donaldson said that he and his party would ‘not give our consent to consigning Northern Ireland to second best.’ The speech featured all of his greatest hits, taking aim at the UK government, the EU, Dublin and their Stormont allies for their intransigence over the protocol.

The DUP and its outriders have rationalised today’s developments in the following terms: in the perceived absence of progress on removing the protocol, they have been left with little option but to exercise what levers are left to them.