Henry McDonald: For the DUP, much hangs on Conservative leadership vote

In the two main southern Irish newspapers columnists and political commentators have contrasted the nasty, ya-boo bruising Conservative Party leadership contest to the supposedly tranquil, civilised, courteous way parties in the Dail and beyond conduct their business.

Brexit of course, the new font of all evil, has made the Brits over there all feral and fractious, as witnessed in the increasingly bitter battle to succeed Boris Johnson.

Some brave, lone voices such as the Irish Times veteran political observer Stephen Collins have cautioned against such smug parallels pointing to the heated exchanges in the Irish parliament this week as Sinn Fein tried but failed to bring in a vote of No Confidence in the Fine Gael-Fianna Fail led coalition.

A day later Sinn Fein emerged again in a new opinion poll as the largest political force south of the border on 36 per cent, which means that a supposedly moderate, middle-of-the-road electorate is poised at any time to elect to state power a party that still glorifies the Provisional IRA campaign, the victims of which include members of the Garda Siochana and the Irish Defence Forces.

You can argue over the reasons for the Sinn Fein surge such as the present Irish government’s failure to fix the state’s housing crisis, but the now seemingly unstoppable march of that party hardly indicates a political system where unbending ideology is supposed to be an unpalatable relic of the past.

Nonetheless, the striking impression the UK public will take from the bickering and the accusation of ‘Black Ops’ by the likes of Penny Mordaunt on Friday is of a party of toxic, warring factions.

And while Northern Ireland is not front or centre of the divisive debates in this contest, the future of the Protocol, the Bill to replace it, the Union itself all lurk in the shadows where rival sides skulk and plan to ambush their opponents.

The Protocol Bill has two more days left of its third stage in the House of Commons and Westminster sources are adamant it will survive further amendments. The same sources told the News Letter that they expect that any opposition or blockage of the Bill in the House of Lords (stage 4 of its progress through the Houses of Parliament) will be overruled by the Tory majority in the Commons. Yet for the DUP in particular, much still hinges on the Tory leadership vote because, as Lord Moylan warned this week, if either Rishi Sunak or Penny Mordaunt are elected then there would be a danger Brexit would not be completed.