Jeffrey Donaldson resignation: Stormont shaken as key proponent of the DUP deal to restore power-sharing gone

Questions will now hang over Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s deal – and indeed the foundations of Stormont itself.

Yesterday, MLAs and officials alike were asking what it would all mean for the stability of the government – and whether another collapse is imminent or even inevitable. That seems highly unlikely, in the short term.

However, the DUP is already riven with divisions over the protocol and the sea border – and it will now have to decide on a new party leader in the midst of those splits.

Gavin Robinson is temporarily at the helm, as interim leader. The East Belfast MP has been a long-time ally of Sir Jeffrey and a staunch defender of the party’s return to Stormont.

It is unlikely that there will be any sudden change in direction for the party under Mr Robinson – who could go on to become leader proper.

However there has been unease within sections of the party that key positions were given to Donaldson allies, and those who were most vocal in supporting a return.

There is unhappiness among some that Emma Little Pengelly was given the role of Deputy First Minister, despite being co-opted rather than elected to the assembly.

This fact has been used by opponents such as the TUV leader Jim Allister who has described her as Michelle O’Neill’s “unelected lady in waiting”. However many others are pleased at how the Deputy First Minister has performed.

The Donaldson era – and the focus on rows over whether the party should return to Stormont with the Irish Sea border still in place – papered over other cracks in the party.

Old divisions from the leadership campaign when Arlene Foster was pushed out, are still there. Many of them are driven by personal animosities and some by the direction the party is travelling in more broadly – on social and cultural issues.

There have already been private suggestions that Edwin Poots should run again for leader. There will also be discussions between those fundamentally opposed to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s deal about whether this is their opportunity to seize control of the party.

The messaging from the DUP since its return to devolution has been markedly different to anything in its history. It has embraced Irish language and culture in a way once unthinkable. There are many in the party who support that approach, and many who do not.

This week the party had decided to raise concerns about Irish language road signs on the basis of cost – not on the principle of whether they should be there. This may have been a tactic – or a sign of a more fundamental shift in the party’s attitude to the issue. If it is the latter, there are those within the party who are not comfortable with such an approach – and it is issues like this which could swing a leadership campaign.

There is also an issue of trust in what the party is telling the public. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson had claimed that the Irish Sea border and the Windsor Framework’s green lane were gone, and that the party should return to Stormont on that basis.

Baroness Hoey, who has close relationships with senior figures in the DUP, says trust in the party is now a crucial issue. The former Labour MP told the News Letter: “Unionism has been torn apart over the denial by the DUP leadership that the Irish Sea border has gone when it so clearly has not.“The new Interim leader should now use this opportunity to look again at the deal he helped negotiate and be honest about its failure to stop EU law or remove the Irish Sea border.

"Trust in the DUP has been broken and only radical change in its policy can help to restore it”.

That will not be simple for anyone opposed to the deal who may want to lead the party – because there are those who believe that the only leverage the party had was its Stormont boycott.

But any move towards a return of boycott would be catastrophic for party unity.

Until, and perhaps even when, the DUP decides its future, the unity of the executive itself will be on shaky ground. A new leader will need the trust of diametrically opposed wings of the party – and the public.