Letter: Power sharing is based upon a foundation of falsehoods and unionist support for it will continue to ebb away

Just as 2021 and 2022 saw almost unprecedented unionist unity - centred around the fundamental principles set out in the Ulster Day 2021 declaration - in 2024, unionism fractured and the hitherto unprecedented unity of purpose fell apart as Jeffrey Donaldson and those around him in the DUP returned to Stormont as implementers of the re-named NI Protocol and consequential Irish Sea border.

It was a dark day for unionism and, obvious though it ought to have been to everyone then, it can be said now without any credible counter-argument: that deal represented a betrayal and was based upon demonstrable falsehoods and deceptions.

It will always be a mystery to me what compelled Jeffrey Donaldson to so shamelessly and religiously espouse that which he must have known (because even those around him told him clearly) was false. He became an evangelist for acceptance and implementation of the Irish Sea border with a lick of red, white and blue paint, whilst incredibly proclaiming- contrary to all the legal and political facts- that he had swept away that very same border.

As we see the end of 2024, not even those who once evangelised about the ‘Safeguarding the Union’ deal (which was always more accurately to be labelled as ‘Surrendering the Union’) are willing to tie themselves to the claims which underpinned the DUP’s return to Stormont.

Indeed, the DUP have gone from proclaiming they had “cut the pipeline of EU law”; “removed the Irish Sea border”; and “restored NI’s place in the UK” to making it their policy to end the application of EU law; remove the Irish Sea border; and restore NI’s place in the UK. That those two party positions existed simultaneously within the very same year says much about the intellectual and moral credibility to be attached to the DUP’s purported opposition to the Irish Sea border.

I do not wish to be churlish and say ‘we told you so’ to those who fell for the propaganda and spin, but it is important to record that those of us who- against intense pressure, mockery and derision- stood resolutely against that deal have been wholly vindicated, in less than a year. The “dead end unionists” were dead-right.

Power sharing is based upon a foundation of falsehoods. Unionist support for it will continue to ebb away and, hopefully, in 2025 it will again fall- treason and treachery together.

Jamie Bryson, NI director of policy, Centre for the Union