Election 2023: DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson indicates he is open to 're-alignment' of unionist politics to stop multi-party vote-splitting handing victory to Sinn Fein

He was speaking after it was confirmed that the DUP is now playing second fiddle to Sinn Fein in terms of the number of councillors it has, after already falling behind the republican party in MLA numbers last May.

The DUP held on to the 122 seats it won during the 2019 election whilst Sinn Fein surged ahead by 39 to end with 144 (a result dubbed “momentous” by Michelle O’Neill).

The DUP took roughly 23% of the first-preference votes to about 31% for Sinn Fein.

Sir Jeffrey said “the DUP is very pleased with our results… our vote has held up well”.

But he added “there are lessons we need to draw from the elections, as we've seen Sinn Fein make gains and it's very simple for me”.

Meanwhile two former unionist leaders – Edwin Poots and Mike Nesbitt – indicated that some kind of party merger is needed to stave off similar results in the future.

The former said that “unionism being divided across three parties [is] not a sustainable model” whilst the latter told the BBC that a “fundamental re-alignment of unionism is now required" – possibly into two parties.

When the idea of such “realignment” was floated to Sir Jeffrey by the News Letter, he replied: “I think those are all very interesting ideas.

"I think unionism needs to have a big conversation around where we're going.

"Having four parties contesting an election, splintering the vote, and the shortage of transfers at critical times when unionist candidates could be elected, we need to look at all of this.

"We need to look at the differential in turnout between areas where nationalists do better and areas where unionists do better.

"I think the more co-ordinated unionism is and the more joined up we are, the better the turnout will be, the better the results will be.”

Meanwhile Mr Poots, who led the DUP for a month in 2021, said at the weekend the council result had been “decent,” but it wasn’t enough.

"Sinn Fein have obviously surged and that's largely been at the expense of other nationalist parties,” he said.

"That's something where I think for unionism it's a ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ moment.

"So as people look at these results and they look at nationalism coalescing around Sinn Fein and unionism being divided across three parties I think that's not a sustainable model for the way forward.

"I would much prefer to see unionism in general having a stronger output and unionism in general holding their seats.”

Whilst the DUP held its own, the same could not be said for the UUP, which fell from 75 seats to 54, with a similar fate befalling the SDLP, which dropped from 59 seats to 39 – whilst Alliance grew from 53 to 67.

Mike Nesbitt, who led the UUP from 2012 to 2017, told the BBC: "It is my view that if you look at the trend within unionism that the broad church that we used to celebrate as part of our culture within Ulster unionism is no longer effective.

"It's day has gone and I believe as a personal view, and I'm not talking on behalf of the party here, that a fundamental re-alignment of unionism is now required so that we can have a coherence that is currently absent...

"But I believe what we should be looking at is not unionist unity because that just isn't going to happen.”

Instead he said “a realignment to my mind looks like two parties”.

"One which would be probably closer aligned to the current TUV, and then you would have a second much larger party which would be made up of the more progressive unionists who would be coherent and they would be selling a coherent message about the future in a way that we are not doing at the moment.”

As to whether the UUP’s weak performance presages a change in leadership, he said: “There is no question about the leadership… Doug's a good and honourable man and he is a leader and I support him.”

The TUV meanwhile came back with nine councillors – an increase on the six it won in 2019.

A spokesman for the party told the News Letter “while we would like to have seen further progress, this has been a good election for TUV,” adding that they were within a “very fine margin” of taking a string of other seats.

He also issued a warning to the DUP about its pledge to reject of the Windsor Framework, saying “there is an onus on those who made that promise to the electorate to keep it”.

He added: “The worst thing Unionism could do when faced with the growth of Sinn Fein would be to roll over and accept their demands on holding the First Minister post and imposing an Irish Sea Border.

“As the only Unionist party to grow both in terms of votes and seats, TUV will continue to act as the voice of challenge.”

Sir Jeffrey had also been asked about party mergers after the last election in May 2022.

At that time he spoke of wishing to meet the other unionist parties to “[look] at ways in which we can co-operate more fully in the future”.

But he also said “I’m not talking about formal mergers" – though he later added: “I rule nothing out.”

Speaking to the News Letter at the weekend was UUP stalwart Paul Michael, of Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council.

He won his seat back comfortably, but went on to tell the paper that, when it comes to a DUP/UUP merger: “We can stand back as long as we want and see these factions within unionism – and we’ve seen this here today: surplus votes, votes being lost.

"I think the people are speaking… It’d be naive of anyone to turn a blind eye to what is happening. I think the people are pushing for that and I think, yes, we’re looking one day – in the not too distant future, I may add – looking at a unionist party.”