Former DUP special advisor says 'deal' leak is about strength of feeling on Protocol - not damaging Sir Jeffrey Donaldson's leadership

Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme Mr Graham said: “It’s not up to me to speculate who has leaked what”.

However, he added: “I don’t think it’s necessarily to damage Jeffrey per se, I think it’s because people do have very strong feelings – including myself… I think it’s not a case of someone trying to take a salted earth policy. I think the fact is that people do have genuine fears for the position unionism finds itself in”.

Yesterday, the DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said that “ill-informed” anonymous sources had briefed media on a DUP party meeting on Friday and denied the claim that it was a “make or break” moment.

Sir Jeffrey said: “I’m afraid the so-called senior DUP sources who made this claim are ill-informed, they are not people who are around the party officer table, they are not people who are privy to all of the detail that the party officers have been dealing with.

“None of this spooks me, fazes me. I am focused on the job I have to do.”

The DUP source told the Nolan Show last week that the current offer from the government leaves the Windsor Framework and Irish Sea border in place.

The DUP leader said yesterday that there are “a number of important issues that have to be finalised if we are to see a restored assembly and executive” – and that there would be meetings with the government this week.

On a return to Stormont Mr Graham – a former education special advisor for the party – told the BBC’s Sarah Brett: “Unionism no longer has a majority and my concern is that the change in demographics and the change that will continue in demographics leaves us vulnerable as unionists in terms of if an when a border poll comes.

"My concern is the longer we’re out of Stormont – and look for me the health system is broken and the education system is not far behind it… the economic significance of the Windsor Framework will have a further profound effect on not only our position constitutionally within the United Kingdom but also economically. There are so many bad options for unionism at the minute.

"And in fact in my view there are no good options. I don’t want to be negative… but that is the reality. In my view – and speaking to people who know a lot more about unionism and a lot more about politics than I [do] – there are people without quoting them by name who say unionism has never been in as vulnerable and as weak a position ever in the history of Northern Ireland, but probably since the Act of Union itself than it is now. The only consideration I would take about re-entering Stormont is that – as Peter Robinson said you have a foot on the brake and a hand on the steering wheel.

"You have the ability to deliver for community groups, for local sports clubs, for the workers who are out on strike. The list goes on and on who you can deliver for – the system is there for it, the process is there. However, my concern is that I don’t actually know if the system without reform can do that”, he said.

The former DUP councillor believes that the current system of government is too dysfunctional and caught up in “barter politics”. He is concerned that with the rise of Alliance there could be effectively a three-way veto similar to the situation in Belfast City Hall where “nobody is happy”.