New DUP leader Edwin Poots has wasted little time consigning the Arlene Foster era to history. Poots’ shake-up of his Stormont ministerial team has resulted in Foster’s loyalists being shown the door, in favour of what the Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister drily termed ‘Poots’ posts’.
Poots’ appointment of Paul Givan, his fellow Lagan Valley MLA, as first minister of Northern Ireland, is perhaps his most controversial, though not unexpected, move. Givan, who like Poots is a creationist, is one of the more verbose figures in the DUP hinterland.
During his previous spell as communities minister – at the height of the renewable heating crisis, which did for devolution in 2017 – he cut a bursary scheme which allowed disadvantaged children to learn Irish. In 2014, he also championed a Private Members Bill which, in the eyes of Northern Ireland’s LGBT community, could have allowed businesses to refuse to serve individuals who identified that way.
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