Unionist co-operation necessary to avoid losing votes and seats at upcoming elections - DUP leader
Unionist parties should be prepared to pursue co-operation where it can deliver “stronger representation and better outcomes” for Northern Ireland, the DUP leader has said.
Gavin Robinson’s comments come as polling shows little between the three main unionist parties with next year’s Assembly election looming and candidate selections well underway.
He wants deals done to ensure that unionist votes aren’t lost in transfers, with Northern Ireland Assembly and Local Government elections scheduled for 6 May 2027.
In a speech to DUP members in Ballymena on Friday night, Mr Robinson said that “failure to co-operate has a price, and North Antrim has the receipt”.
The DUP leader argued that unionist parties should focus on the areas where they can work together, build support for shared policy priorities and maximise unionist representation at Assembly and council level.
“There is much more that unites unionists than divides us. While our parties will not agree on every issue, we share a responsibility to strengthen Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom and to deliver effectively for the people we represent.
“The public rightly expects unionist parties to show maturity and leadership. That means identifying areas of common ground, working together where it is practical and maintaining a clear focus on the challenges facing families, businesses and communities.
“There is scope for greater cooperation on the policies that matter: growing our economy, supporting farming and rural communities, improving health and education, tackling pressures on household budgets and ensuring Northern Ireland benefits fully from its place within the United Kingdom.
“We should also be willing to have constructive discussions about how unionism can maximise its representation at both Assembly and Council level.
“Those conversations must be approached in good faith, with respect for the identity of each party and with the interests of unionist voters at their heart. We must learn from North Antrim.
“This is a constituency that has returned unionist representatives for generations. It is unionist in its history, its identity and its outlook. And yet in the 2022 Assembly Election, unionism lost a seat here that should have strengthened the unionist voice at Stormont.
“It wasn’t lost because unionism was rejected. It was lost because unionist transfers were lost.
“That point about transfers matters, and it’s one I don’t think has been properly reckoned with.
“Under our electoral system, no party wins on first preferences alone. Seats are decided by how votes transfer between candidates as others are eliminated.
“When unionist parties run against each other without any understanding of how that fight plays out further down the count, unionist transfers bleed away to other parties, or don’t transfer at all. Every one of those lost transfers is a vote cast by a unionist elector that, in the end, did nothing to return a unionist MLA. That is not a failure of unionist voters. It is a failure of unionist parties to organise around the system we actually have, rather than the system we wish we had.
“That result in North Antrim had a direct consequence: Andrew Muir secured the DAERA ministry. In a constituency built on farming, food production and the wider agri-food economy, that’s a political outcome that farmers and Gfamilies here are living with and feeling the impact of daily. Decisions on agriculture policy and on the future shape of farm support - all of that now runs through a minister who does not carry the same weight of understanding of this community that previous DUP ministers have shown.
“Failure to co-operate within unionism has a price, and North Antrim has the receipt.
“This is not about pretending differences do not exist. It is about recognising that division for its own sake serves no one. Where cooperation can deliver stronger representation and better outcomes for Northern Ireland, we should be prepared to pursue it.
“The DUP will continue to make the case for confident, outward-looking unionism and will engage positively with others who share the goal of strengthening the Union and delivering for the people of Northern Ireland”, Gavin Robinson said.