Will The DUP Bus In Poots?

Probably like most people, until a couple of days ago, I had never heard of Edwin Poots, despite him serving as the MLA for Lagan Valley for the last 23 years, and currently being the DUP's Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs.  He has come into he limelight after throwing his hat in the ring to replace Arlene Foster as DUP Leader, after she was unceremoniously dumped by the DUP, following the disastrous turn of events they have faced in the last two years.

Poots, of course, will face opposition from better known DUP politicians, such as Ian Paisley and Jeffrey Donaldson MP, as well as Gavin Robinson MP.  Even by the Neanderthal standards of the DUP, Poots is a wacky reactionary.  He believes the Earth is only 7,000 years old, and believes in Creationism, rejecting the theory of evolution.  Not surprisingly, his views on LGBT rights, and on women's rights are equally Palaeolithic.  His reactionary nationalist views are of a similar vein.  He would pose a bigger problem for Boris Johnson than has Arlene Foster, because he would be likely to take a harder Unionist line, in demanding that Johnson remove the border down the Irish Sea that he imposed, as part of Britain getting a trade deal with the EU, that minimises the losses to Britain from Brexit.

Johnson, of course, is not going to do that, for the simple reason that he agreed to that border in the Irish Sea, because, unless he was going to agree to the deal that Theresa May had agreed, or else unless he agreed to Britain openly remaining in the Single Market and Customs Union, the only route to a deal with the EU resided in the Protocol, and the Irish Sea Border.  Had the DUP supported May's bad deal, they would have avoided, Johnson's even worse deal, but they made the mistake of believing anything that Johnson says.  Its basically that, which Foster has now paid the price for, but it was the DUP as a whole that fell for Johnson's lies. 

Indeed, had the DUP opposed Brexit, back in 2016, they may have swung enough votes to prevent it, given the wafer thin majority with which it was approved.  It would have certainly further undermined any constitutional legitimacy that the vote had, given that Scotland and Northern Ireland voted decisively against it.  But, the DUP's own stupidity and reactionary politics drive them into the Brexit camp.  Like most Brexiters, they probably thought they would lose the vote, anyway, and so they were free to engage in political grandstanding without having ever o face the consequences.

For the DUP, those consequences are quite clear.  They have alienated even a significant chunk of Protestant voters, and that the most important part, the younger voters, who will have votes in elections for years to come.  Those voters grew up with all of the advantages that the EU brought with it, and that now, the DUP and Boris Johnson have, at least to an extent, ripped away from them.  Their only protection from having all of that ripped away completely now resides in the non-unionist parties in Northern Ireland, as well as in the EU, most immediately represented by the Irish government.  It is the EU, and the Irish government that has protected the rights of Northern Ireland citizens, by insisting on the Protocol, which keeps Northern Ireland inside the EU, for all intents and purposes indefinitely.

By putting the border down the Irish Sea, between Britain and Northern Ireland, Boris Johnson effectively signalled that he sees the inevitable progress of Northern Ireland being into a reunification with the Irish Republic. The trade deal that Johnson signed with the EU, has been an inevitable disaster for Britain, with exports having crashed.  But, essentially, Northern Ireland is in the EU, and so the same problems of British exporters have been replicated now into Northern Ireland also.  That means an acceleration in the integration of the Northern Ireland economy into that of the Republic, that was taking place anyway, and a corresponding severing of the economic relation between Northern Ireland and Britain, just as Brexit means an inevitable reduction in the economic ties between Britain and Ireland as a whole, as the latter re-orientates much more to trade with the rest of the EU.

If the DUP does choose Poots as their next leader, it will be fitting.  To have as their Leader someone who most of us have never heard of, whose views are so reactionary that even many young Protestants will be turned away from, is just a reflection of the fact that the DUP itself has pursued a policy that has led to its own increasing irrelevance.