NI election 2022: DUP faces electoral challenge after a torrid year

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has led the DUP since the summer of 2021

After a year in which the Democratic Unionist Party had three leaders - one of whom was allegedly "stabbed in the back" and another who lasted a mere three weeks - the party decided to launch its assembly election campaign in a cinema complete with popcorn.

The DUP doesn't do irony but if it did...

It's a year since Arlene Foster was unceremoniously removed in the least DUP way ever - the first time the party had ever had an official no confidence letter circulated against a leader - in the wake of disappointing election results.

She was succeeded by Edwin Poots and he in turn resigned weeks later to be replaced by Sir Jeffrey Donaldson.

No more can the party tell us it is just one big happy family - even if you often felt it did so through gritted teeth.

Sir Jeffrey - the man whose job is to succeed where many in the DUP felt Arlene Foster was going to fail, to keep its nose ahead of Sinn Féin - claims he is now leading a "united party".

But it didn't necessarily look that way when the person he replaced, Mr Poots, had his attempt to jump ship from his Lagan Valley constituency to South Down vetoed by party officers, many of whom haven't forgiven him for the turmoil caused by what happened last year.

He was seen as one of the main figures responsible for forcing Mrs Foster from office and was attempting to move from Lagan Valley to South Down after Sir Jeffrey - who is a Westminster MP - said he was going to come back and run in Lagan Valley.

It would have meant a total of three DUP candidates where the party only feels it can win two seats.

He ultimately ended up swapping Lagan Valley for Belfast South where he was nominated as the candidate after the untimely death of his party colleague Christopher Stalford.

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But although the DUP has consistently trailed Sinn Féin in opinion poll after opinion poll - and in some cases other parties as well - it would be a mistake to write the party off.

It remains a considerable election-fighting force, armed once again with its favourite tactic, which it hopes will motivate an increasingly sceptical unionist electorate.

• DUP launches election manifesto

"This is an election where the DUP are really trying to use, I suppose, their key argument in assembly elections since 2007. 'Vote for us or you might get a Sinn Féin first minister'," said Sam McBride Northern Ireland editor of the Belfast Telegraph.

"But this is the first time where it's actually potentially true and they know it's true and voters know it's true.

"The question here is does that still resonate? Do people who are disillusioned unionist voters - people who maybe voted DUP in the past or didn't vote DUP - do they think this is the time to give it one final go or are they just fed up?

"Do they think these people have had power for too long? They don't deserve another chance?"

Protocol protests

The DUP has a five-point plan dealing with health, education, the economy, the cost of living and of course, the protocol.

Sir Jeffrey has taken part in many of the rallies protesting against the Northern Ireland Protocol part of the Brexit deal with mixed results.

He had to condemn the placing of a poster featuring the Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie with his head in a noose, beside the stage at one of the rallies in Lurgan, County Armagh.

There's now a picture of himself and the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader Jim Allister turning the offending poster from view.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has spoken at many anti-protocol rallies, including this one in Ballymoney, County Antrim

The image appeared after Mr Beattie decided to withdraw from the rallies even though the Ulster Unionists also oppose the protocol, because he claimed they were raising tensions.

It was that which led to some hardliners branding him a traitor.

But the DUP has little option but to stick with the rallies now in spite of doubts over whether the protocol issue is the potential election winner it believed it to be.

Another DUP luminary, East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson, suffered the indignity of being heckled at another protocol rally in Markethill, County Armagh.

It has also had to answer questions about why it quit the Stormont Executive over the issue just as the cost of living crisis was starting to bite hard.

In recent weeks, however, it hasn't been the protocol which has been the main issue employed by the DUP to persuade unionists they need, at all costs, to avoid a Sinn Féin first minister, but rather the idea that the party would use such a victory to further its case for a referendum on a border poll - a referendum on whether Northern Ireland should remain in the UK or unite with the Republic of Ireland.

'Splits and divisions'

At his party's launch in the cinema, Sir Jeffrey said: "What I hear more than anything from unionists is that this notion that we should turn in on ourselves in Northern Ireland and have this divisive polarising border poll - I find no support for that.

"People want our political leaders to solve the problems that we have at the moment to meet the challenges that are before us. To make Northern Ireland work to move forward together."

But is the message hitting home?

Suzanne Breen, the Belfast Telegraph's political editor, isn't so sure.

"They're around 19% or 20% in the polls," she said

"Sinn Féin have a lead of seven or eight percentage points.

"And if we look at where the DUP were under Arlene Foster, when the grassroots started to get really nervous and they ended up deposing her as leader, it was that exact mark of 19% - and Sir Jeffrey Donaldson hasn't been able to make any gains.

"Now that's not his fault. The party has had an absolutely torrid year. The splits and divisions I think are still there, even though there has been a ceasefire for the election campaign."

The DUP launched its election campaign in a cinema

One senior source claims this has been a less difficult election for the party on the doors then the last assembly election in 2017, because of the renewable heath incentive (RHI) scandal and Arlene Foster's infamous crocodile remarks.

On that occasion, Mrs Foster said she would never agree to an Irish Language Act, adding: "If you feed a crocodile, it will keep coming back for more."

Key DUP strategists believe the party can still do it.

They are most worried about three seats - in Foyle, Strangford and North Down.

But they believe Sinn Féin will not be able to repeat its performance of 2017 either.

If they're right and the DUP defies the opinion polls, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson will surely resign his Lagan Valley Westminster seat and come home to lead the party from the comfort of the first minister's office at Stormont.

If they're wrong all bets are off. Would the DUP take the post of deputy first minister and, if they did, would Sir Jeffrey want to be the one to fill it?

The DUP won't say no matter how often you ask.

In keeping with the cinematic theme, I asked Sir Jeffrey if the DUP was heading for a horror movie or a happy ending.

He replied: "I believe in happy endings and you see assembled today a united party, a team of candidates standing together with one goal and that is to win this election."

The DUP's performance has had mixed reviews. But if he's right and it returns more assembly members than Sinn Féin, it won't care.

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