Some might believe that having waited eight months to make up ground with TUV on the Protocol the DUP face the risk of looking like slow learners but this is nothing to their approach to forced collation. On Wednesday 15th September 2021, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson informed the House of Lords’ Constitution Committee that he intends to remove mandatory coalition “within the medium to long term".
Sir Jeffrey must be spending a lot of time reading up on TUV policies since the previous Belfast Telegraph poll. It has been a fundamental principle of TUV to remove mandatory coalition. TUV has properly identified mandatory coalition as the key problem in the Belfast Agreement.
One cannot but help believe it is odd that in NONE of the numerous rounds of crisis negotiations, in none of the fresh starts or new approach deals - which were all announced with so much pomp - did the DUP ever genuinely attempt to address this underlying issue.
Even when they held the power balance at Westminster - at a moment when Sinn Fein was graphically highlighting that a government that must include all main parties cannot work by keeping Stormont down - the DUP did nothing at all to move from the system that requires a party which doesn’t even want Northern Ireland to exist to have chairs in its government as of right.
The political campaigning has well and truly begun when the party which has functioned mandatory coalition with Sinn Fein since 2007 suddenly wants to claim that it intends to abandon that system!
In reality, Sir Jeffrey’s statements serve to highlight that it really is TUV that has captured the interest of the Unionist electorate and he is clearly trying to catch up. Be it the Protocol or power-sharing with Sinn Fein/IRA people realize that TUV is the real deal!
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