Texts reveal DUP’s four-letter shock and fury as Stormont fell apart

The DUP’s shock and fury at Sinn Fein as republicans moved towards collapsing Stormont has been laid bare in internal party communications published three and a half years after they were sent.

Among tens of thousands of pages of evidence which has now been published by the RHI Inquiry is an email exchange which was handed to the inquiry by Timothy Johnston, now the DUP’s powerful chief executive – although he does not appear to play any part in it.

The exchange began after Sinn Féin Finance Minister Mairtin Ó Muilleoir’s private office sent a memo to DUP Economy Minister Simon Hamilton on the afternoon of January 6.

The curt memo rejected Mr Hamilton’s proposed one-year emergency cut to RHI subsidies until a longer term plan could be drawn up and argued that it was a “sticking plaster” approach to a massive problem.

In an email discussion with his own spad, John Robinson, and Arlene Foster’s spads, Mr Johnston and Richard Bullick, Mr Hamilton said bluntly: “This f*****r has already issued this to the press before I got sight of it”.

Mr Bullick replied with a single word in which one asterisk did little to mask his feelings: “C*NT”.

Mr Hamilton responded: “Are we still going to let this gobshite spout off and not respond?”

Also among the huge volume of evidence published by the inquiry as it moves towards winding up is a lengthy series of text messages between senior DUP figures from an earlier stage in the crisis.

On Friday, December 16 – the day after former DUP minister Jonathan Bell’s sensational televised interview with Stephen Nolan – Martin McGuinness phoned Arlene Foster to ask her to stand aside as First Minister while the RHI scandal was investigated.

When the DUP leader refused, the deputy First Minister rapidly issued a statement making public his call for her to stand down.
Internal DUP messages show how that move caught the DUP top brass off guard – and also caused fury.

The inquiry said that the text messages were between Mr Hamilton, his then spad John Robinson, and Mrs Foster’s two key spads, Mr Johnston and Mr Bullick.

However, the inquiry has redacted the names of who sent each message, making it impossible to identify each sender.

As news of Mr McGuinness’s move emerged, one of the four senior DUP figures said: “Did we know DFM was doing that?”

Another replied: “What’s he done?”

In response, someone said: “Called for af to stand aside during investigation”.

One of the four replied: “B******s”.

Another of the DUP figures replied: “So who will look after things when he is in hospital?”

Then, five days later, as the Stormont crisis deepened, top Sinn Féin adviser Aidan McAteer sent an unusual email to Mr Johnston and Mr Bullick. In something akin to a diplomatic communiqué, Mr McAteer said that what was beneath was a “communication from Sinn Féin leadership to DUP leadership”.

The unsigned message beneath said: “The seriousness of the current crisis has been set out and accepted in our discussions this week. This needs to be developed into substantive meetings between our parties and before the Christmas break if possible. We would therefore ask for an early date on which party delegations will meet to deal with the resolution to the crisis.

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