Editorial: The DUP stood up to represent Northern Ireland in Washington DC

While Alliance, the SDLP and Sinn Fein engaged in a ridiculous boycott of Donald Trump, the DUP stood up for Northern Ireland.

​As the week has progressed, it has become increasingly clear how well the party played a difficult hand, of being alone in Washington amongst Irish Americans who are often happy to sideline unionists.

But, led by Emma Little-Pengelly, the deputy first minister of NI, the party delegation used its brief time with President Trump to tell him more about the province, and the coming Open golf tournament – which was such a success in 2019 that it has returned to Portrush.

The Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt also shunned the politics of boycott to attend the Capitol Hill St Patrick’s lunch at which Mr Trump specifically praised his Northern Ireland “friends”, using the name of the devolved polity recognised by the Belfast Agreement – words that Michelle O’Neill will not utter, while citing that 1998 deal when it suits Sinn Fein.

President Trump is, of course, an erratic leader. But he is an immensely successful businessman who decisively won the election to be the leader of the United States. The idea that he is going to notice a protest by politicians from a country, NI, that is smaller than the average US state is risible.

In any event, the Irish America that has given Sinn Fein such backing is changing in its allegiances, being much closer to the Republican Party of Mr Trump than the traditionally pro Irish Democratic Party. So the snub will not have impressed that constituency, which applauded Mr Trump’s warm words about NI.

Let’s hope that the president, whose vice-president JD Vance, is of Ulster stock, does get a formal invitation to the Open at Portrush and gets to see the world’s best golfers playing one of the world’s great courses this July.