Gavin Robinson: Unionists can win the next Assembly election - but only the DUP can deliver that
The DUP is the only unionist party which will run enough candidates to have any prospect of winning next year’s Assembly election – but a pro-Union victory can only be secured through co-operation, Gavin Robinson has said.
The unionist leader has also questioned whether his party is doing as badly as opinion polls suggest – saying that he doesn’t accept them.
He was speaking to the News Letter ahead of his party’s annual conference on Saturday, where he set out the party’s vision for the next mandate at Stormont.
The DUP boss has set out his belief that the party can provide a voice for a “common-sense” majority in Northern Ireland – on issues ranging from woke policies to good public services.
He has also clearly ruled out scrapping a veto over the formation or collapsing of an Executive – saying it is a “pillar” of the Belfast Agreement that he doesn’t think can be removed.
The East Belfast MP, who spends much of his time in the national parliament at Westminster, sat down for an interview in the party’s offices at Stormont on Wednesday.
Saying he was looking forward to the conference at the weekend, he argued that the year ahead is important for the party and Northern Ireland.
“There will be a theme this year of building common cause around common sense. There's a lot going on in the world that leads people like me to scratch our heads and wonder, is this right? Can it be better?
“And as a party, we've always taken the opportunity to step forward and stand up for common sense and for truth. And sometimes it's not always seen as attractive or edgy, or some people like to suggest progressive, but we've never shied away from saying the right thing at the right time”.
He said issues like gender were part of the “continual woke agenda” over recent years – pointing to guidance the DUP education minister issued to restore single sex spaces in local schools.
“But common sense translates much more into everyday lives. It points to the provisions of good public services, the necessity to have good government. Common sense attaches to many of our policies in many ways.
“When you look at climate change and the inability of this assembly to deliver key infrastructure projects like the A5 because of a climate act pushed through in a rush in a private members' process. Totally unsuitable, totally inappropriate, flagged at the time, we warned at the time.
“And yet, here we are at the back end of another assembly mandate, and it seems as if there are still assembly members who want to repeat the same mistakes on different issues, like conversion therapy”, he said.
Since unionists lost their assembly majority, there have been growing calls for reform of the institutions, with unionists – and the DUP in particular – accused of “blocking progress” on various issues. On many economic and social issues, Sinn Fein, the SDLP and Alliance have a majority in the Assembly.
The DUP boss said for those parties, “progress can only be achieved by excluding unionists and excluding unionist views”. Asked about reforms proposed by SF to end the ability of one party to veto the formation or cause the collapse of the Executive, he urged caution.
He said the 1998 deal and the subsequent St Andrews deal require cross-community support, and consensus within each community.
“That's a pillar that I don't think can be removed. A foundation that the system relies upon, and I can't see how we could progress in a way where the views of a significant part of one section are ignored or diminished.
“We are not interested in diminishing the protections that are there for any community in Northern Ireland, including our own. It cannot be right that for 28 years minority protections were important when nationalists felt they were in the minority.
“But now they have Alliance to rely upon, they're happy to remove minority protections if that impacts the unionist community. I won't countenance that. We cannot countenance that”, the DUP boss said.
He argued that the biggest issue is attitude, and whether people are willing to work together.
Mr Robinson said that while a single unionist party would be a difficult sell to to the wider unionist family, there shouldn’t be any discord on fundamental principles – like “protecting and defending the union, ensuring that we continue to build and strengthen those connections across this United Kingdom, continuing to undo the harm of the Irish Sea border and those arrangements”.
He added: “I believe unionism can win the next assembly election, but it will not win through division. It will not win through each individual strand or column tearing lumps out of one another.
“I can confidently say that there will be no other unionist party in Northern Ireland that will even field enough candidates to provide the prospect of winning. I think I can confidently say that today. But unionism can win if unionism cooperates”.
Mr Robinson said the unionist people are asking for cooperation in advance of this election.
“I've been leaning into it not now, not recently, not in light of of polls, which, by the way, I don't accept what they demonstrate. It's not what I see on the ground”, he said.
The DUP boss said he had personally benefited from co-operation between the parties 11 years ago in East Belfast, as did Tom Elliott in Fermanagh – as unionism “had the foresight” to cooperate then.