The latest leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Edwin Poots, resigned last night after a bungled nomination process for the first minister of Northern Ireland position left most of his party members voting against him.
In the end, Poots got his way and the DUP’s Paul Givan was appointed first minister, despite his party’s MPs and AMs voting 24-4 against nominating him. Poots had been in post for less than a month.
It looks like Northern Ireland’s largest party is at war with itself. But it points to a deeper reality. The DUP has never supported the Good Friday Agreement: it was the only major party not to agree to the peace settlement in 1998, and has always been ambivalent – at best – about it.
