Election 2023: Sir Jeffrey Donaldson: We need a big conversation on the way forward

​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 two party solution 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 realignment of unionism is now required” – possibly into two parties, although he emphasised to the News Letter last night that he was talking about two new parties, not a merger.

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.