Five challenges for the new DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson…

After Sir Jeffrey Donaldson was formally endorsed as the next DUP leader on Saturday, it’s becoming clearer that not much else has changed apart from the headman.

Questions remain regarding how they can revive the political beast that has managed to stay at the top of Northern Ireland politics for close to two decades.

The following are five evident challenges that Sir Jeffrey and the rest of his party must tackle in the coming weeks and months.

Uniting the party

Having three different leaders in the span of seven weeks isn’t a good look for the DUP, especially when the party has had five in total within the past 50 years. No matter the country or system, having this many leadership shake-ups is not good for stability or projections of unity. Considering that 19 DUP members voted against Donaldson’s 17 votes in the last leadership contest, Sir Jeffrey is going to have to make sure that his entire party is behind him.

Dealing with the Irish language issue

An introduction of Irish language rights is a main sticking point for the DUP. Edwin Poots lost his job because he nominated the first minister to get the executive back up and running, going against most of his party colleagues. But the Irish language problem isn’t going anywhere, not when Brandon Lewis, the NI Secretary of State, is threatening to have Westminster introduce Irish language legislation if the Executive does not come to a consensus on the issue. It will be very difficult for the party to not face up to the issue, considering the agreements made in St Andrews in 2006, and New Decade New Approach in 2020. A wildcard move that some in the DUP would like, is for the N.I protocol to be done away with in exchange for an agreement on Irish language rights.

The N.I Protocol

Speaking of the protocol, the DUP has been massively critical of it and the border it has brought between the Irish sea.

In order to protect the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland was left with similar EU rules so that an open border could be left between themselves and the Republic of Ireland.

The rest of the UK does not follow the EU rules, so they are treated differently than Northern Ireland. The DUP are critical of the checks that mainland products are subject to, and some of their products aren’t even allowed into N.I at all.

However, the protocol is not something that can easily be scraped with the click of a finger. Unlike Irish language rights, the issue of the Protocol involves Westminster and the European Union, which the latter believes that there is no other viable alternative.

And the DUP have offered no alternative solution of their own.

Election prospects

Many pundits and commentators question the ability of the DUP to achieve their previous successes at the ballot box. Some tout that they could fall behind Sinn Fein and the UUP, which would see them as the second-largest unionist party. The Belfast Telegraph reported the DUP’s support to have plummeted to 16%, with Sinn Fein on 25%. This would be a grim outcome for those in the DUP, which they would desperately want to avoid.

Jeffrey Donaldson needs to make a concerted effort to broaden his party’s appeal to the N.I public. Younger people need to feel welcome, and pandering to the hardline extremes of the party needs to be laid to rest. Former leader Peter Robinson worked on centring his party’s image, and tried to expand its appeal to as many voters as possible. The question is whether Sir Jeffrey believes in this approach.

Making Stormont work

Finally, the DUP needs to decide whether or not it’s going to go back into the Executive. Trying to bring the institutions down again is the only other game plan available, but this could prove fatal to what is left of the DUP’s public perception. With their current electoral prospects, a new election would probably be the last thing they would want right now. But with strong protests from some sectors of Unionism, and the DUP’s own boycotting of the North/South Ministerial Council meetings, what is the end goal in mind?

Sir Jeffrey will need to find out what his party hopes to realistically achieve. With extremely concerning hospital waiting times, and funding issues across all areas of Northern Ireland; the DUP will certainly not win many new fans by delaying any major action for much longer.

Conor Glackin

I’m a politics student at Ulster University