Posted by Jim on April 11, 2022
DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson is now at the mercy of loyalist anger
DUP leader in too deep to wiggle out of ‘unpredictable’ rallies
In it together: Sir Jeffrey Donaldson (right) with Jim Allister (centre) and Jamie Bryson. Credit: Liam McBurney/PA
April 11 2022 05:55 AM
You’d have to wonder about the mentality of someone who saw fit to put a noose around the neck of an election poster of UUP leader Doug Beattie.
The image of Jeffrey Donaldson and Jim Allister removing the poster is one that perfectly sums up the negativity around this election to date.
It is a depressing picture, and nothing to help their cause, whether that be in relation to the protocol or in terms of preserving the Union.
Instead of talking about the rally, the story of the weekend was the poster and the growing split within unionism.
Since pulling out of the anti-protocol rallies in response to the UVF hoax bomb at a peace event attended by Simon Coveney, Doug Beattie has been the target of negative commentary from some sections of loyalism.
The former soldier isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. He’s not a natural politician, he is not even a typical UUP leader, and I’m pretty sure that’s something he’d agree with.
But he is at least honest about his feelings and at times his failings.
I imagine all the media training in the world wouldn’t be able to soften his edges, but that’s also why so many people have taken to him.
This includes a new team of younger party members who are delighted to be out knocking doors selling his more progressive style of unionism.
The issue with the poster and who was responsible for it is interesting though, in terms of where unionism and loyalism is at — a relevant topic of debate on a weekend that marked the 24th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
Anti-protocol rally in Lurgan pleads for ‘Unionist unity’ with ‘noose’ posters of Doug Beattiesource: Ben Tucker, Belfast Telegraph00:0002:38720p720p480p360p high360p lowShare this video
The Sunday Life reported that the poster was the work of the shadowy fringe group, the Orange Volunteers. Last year, members of the group were involved in promoting protests at volatile interfaces using the social media platform Facebook.
At least one of those protests resulted in violence with very young men engaged in disorder at the Lanark Way peace line, with plastic baton rounds being fired by police.
I find myself wondering, if the organisers of the anti-protocol protests want them to be peaceful and unifying for unionism, why are groups such as the Orange Volunteers not being told to stay away? All of this will just reinforce the decision of the Ulster Unionists to abandon the protests ahead of the election as the right move.
The rallies started to vent anger at what was being called at the time the ‘Boris Betrayal’.
The Prime Minister now barely gets a mention.
They turned from anger at the Withdrawal Agreement to verbal attacks on local politicians who opposed Brexit, to the EU and now the Irish government.
It is a scattergun of anger that is hard to understand or explain given the randomness of the targets.
It then changed to protests about the Good Friday Agreement itself.
People like Jim Allister and Jamie Bryson, who never agreed with the terms of the peace accord, see the changes to the Act of Union as a result of Brexit as a vehicle to start the discussion around the future of the agreement.
Jeffrey Donaldson has been around since those early days, first with the UUP and later the DUP.
This is not his first rodeo; he should be able to step out in the next few weeks to a logical conclusion.
Instead, he has been reduced from being the leader of the largest unionist party, to a supporting actor in the Jim Allister show.
The rallies have morphed yet again into Trump-style election rallies for the TUV, and it’s hard to understand so close to unionism’s most important election in a decade what is still in it for the DUP.
The protocol and any changes to it will not be as a result of a gathering in Lurgan or anywhere else in Northern Ireland, but rather diplomacy and negotiation at an international level.
Jeffrey Donaldson knows this but appears in too deep to wiggle his way out of the large gatherings.
Even after removing a poster of a fellow unionist leader with a noose around the neck, he still couldn’t just walk away and find an alternative and less potentially perilous way to get his point across.
The rallies are increasingly unpredictable, it just takes a handful of people to sway them from peaceful to disorder, and the problem for the DUP is that they have no control over them either way.
Doug Beattie may be the target of some loyalist anger but Jeffrey Donaldson is at the mercy of it, and that it would seem is a much worse place to be.