Certainty
That’s certainly damaging. But it’s, so far, just a few councillors apparently talking to the UUP.
Absolutely true. But, when it gets to the wire, the Protocol and themmuns, will win the day.
Beattie doesn’t appear to be ruthless enough to take advantage of the disarray.
Probably not.
I know it’s only opinion polls but look at the TUV vote there. The issue obviously is there candidates but if they can also attract a few DUP names in then there is not telling how it could go. They will lose votes on both sides, to what degree is the real question.
It’s very hard to say what will happen with any certainty but what was unimaginable for the DUP a year ago is now very possible.
In FST the DUP had a 30% 1st pref last time out. Be interesting to see will that now half with Arlene gone.
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I can’t see that holding up to be honest now with Poots at the helm. He’s the leader most likely to damage Jim’s vote. It’s the Donaldson, Dodds “more progressive” (I know - progressive DUP?) wing which can do Poots damage. It’s why he has Bradley as deputy leader. If Donaldson and the Dodds jumped ship it could have major implications. Problem is would Donaldson have the balls to jump back to th UUP?
And then as always it’s local and personal. They could lose big in Fermanagh\S Tyrone after doing for Arlene. Donaldson whatever he does will hold his vote. N Belfast and the Dodds could be interesting.
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Yeah. I don’t see the TUV opinion holding up either but it’s more on the basis of their lack of established candidates. Couldn’t name you a TUV politician bar Jim. There’s a lot of disillusionment with the DUP. Unionism will be so fractured the next time out that they are going to be hugely reliant on transfers for the final seat and will end up losing quite a few to Alliance/SF/SDLP.
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Beattie is the most impressive leader in Unionism for a good while. DUP will lose more votes to Alliance and moderate Unionists than they will TUV. Bradshaw election to Deputy Leader is only saving grace for them but even her election shows how split the party is.
United we stand, divided we fall.
Fingers crossed lads …the whole shebang falls on its hole just when the oul protocol needs unified opposition. I’d say poots will play the ‘standing up to sinn fein’ card and no one pay a bit of heed.
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He insisted the club replaced the Orange! Sounds extremely progressive
Is that anywhere online now cp? It’s a live link which is talkback
Jaysus, jim must be on the sauce this morning
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Here ya go. Seamy like a young lad in the principals office making excuses…
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Heard him earlier, drink driving too by the sounds of it…
They are the peepil.
Didn’t take long for Doug Beattie’s mask to slip. Excuse the pun.
From The Phoenix. One for the Decent Journalism thread as well perhaps:
IS PAISLEYISM DEAD?
Date: June 3, 2021 - Northwind
Edwin Poots
LENIN SAID “There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen.” The sudden transformative upheaval in the famously uncommunicative and disciplined DUP fits that pattern. As predicted here (see The Phoenix 7/5/21) the Edwin Poots-led insurgency has split the party down the middle. Its MLAs and MPs elected Poots by a majority of two, one of those votes being his own. At a rancorous and acrimonious meeting in Belfast’s Crowne Plaza hotel on May 27, Poots was ratified by the party executive 72-28 on a show of hands.
Those figures may look decisive, but an earlier proposal for a secret ballot was only defeated by nine votes. Obviously many dissenters did not have the nerve to put their hands up to oppose the ratification – shades of the Haughey/Dessie O’Malley meetings in Fianna Fáil. Before Poots stood up to give his acceptance speech, about a dozen prominent members, including the deposed leader Arlene Foster, walked out. Along with her went former deputy leader Nigel, now Lord Dodds; his wife, economy minister Diane; MPs Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Gavin Robinson and Gregory Campbell; former MP Emma Pengelly, now Foster’s SPAD; and the chair of Foster’s constituency party, who resigned from the party on camera. By the time this goes to press, several other councillors and party members will have resigned. The once monolithic DUP is in bits.
Poots’s leadership campaign produced allegations of threats and intimidation from the losing side. Dodds said there was a smear campaign against his wife; there was a social media campaign against Gavin Robinson’s wife; and, most seriously, police are investigating UDA threats against Jeffrey Donaldson’s campaign manager. Emma Pengelly was also allegedly the victim of a Facebook threat. Arlene Foster threw a parting fragmentation grenade into the fray when she promised to resign as first minister and leave the party when Poots sacked her ministers – always inevitable, since what’s the point in getting rid of Foster and doing the same?
That creates a political crisis since first and deputy first minister are joint positions, so the executive automatically collapses. Sinn Féin and Poots both have big decisions to make. How will his hard-line supporters regard his nomination for first minister if it looks as though he’s trying to appease Sinn Féin? On what grounds would SF refuse to vote for his nominee?
Citing an obnoxious personality is not enough. What SF needs is a written guarantee of movement on contentious matters in the New Decade New Approach (NDNA) document the two governments produced in January 2020. Since then none of it has been implemented, especially the hot potato of Acht na Gaeilge which was the sticking point in February 2018 that prevented Arlene Foster selling the deal she’d agreed with SF to her MLAs. Is that enough to refuse to go into a new executive?
Ian Paisley Jr
There’s a week to decide from the date of Foster’s resignation. The NDNA contains proposals to extend that period to six months but, like everything else in the document, they were never implemented. Aware of the pitfalls, Mary Lou McDonald wrote at the weekend to all the north’s party leaders to call a meeting to discuss the terms for agreeing a new executive.
There’s as much chance of the unionists agreeing to McDonald’s meeting as there is of the Orange order calling off the Twelfth. Still, at least she got her spoke in before the north’s silent, baffled British secretary uttered a syllable. Mary Lou knows she must be seen to be constructive because if SF refuses to endorse Poots’s nominee without a cast-iron justification both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil will pile onto her for destabilising the north, being an untrustworthy coalition partner etc, etc.
However, what strengthens SF’s hand is that the last thing the DUP wants or needs is an election in June or even September. A Lucidtalk opinion poll on May 22 put the DUP on 16%, level pegging with the Alliance, but nine points behind SF on 25%. That places Michelle O’Neill in pole position for first minister. The poll was taken immediately after the MPs and MLAs chose Poots as leader, but showed that 64% of DUP voters preferred Jeffrey Donaldson.
To put it mildly, Poots has a mountain to climb. Opinion polls aside, resignations and walk-outs raise the question of whether the DUP would be able to field credible candidates in several constituencies. For example, in Fermanagh/South Tyrone, Foster’s departure leaves a yawning gap. The party looks likely to implode there. Donaldson and Poots both represent Lagan Valley, one in Stormont, one in Westminster, and share the same constituency office which should be interesting in present circumstances: different entrances perhaps? Clearly the DUP will be at daggers drawn in that constituency.
As for the DUP assembly team, half of whom voted against Poots, animosity and bitterness about the events of the past month remain. For the losers the so-called Paisley wing has triumphed. Ian Paisley Jr has been a conspicuous presence beside Poots in the past fortnight and was the only person Poots took to meet the northern secretary after his election. Paisley has been telling anybody who will listen, “We’ve got the party back after 13 years.” He spoke emotionally at the Crowne Plaza, telling journalists that the defenestration of his father had “killed him”. In the fractured DUP, revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
Poots is Stoop spelled backwards.
Just saying.
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Wed NI is an anagram of Edwin.
Works on more than one level.