Opinion

Mary Kelly: DUP need to decide if they're going to sell the inevitable UK-EU protocol deal... or keep the Assembly in permanent cold storage

A throwback to January 2021 and Ian Paisley Jnr's epiphany about how the ERG weren't really the DUP's best friends...
A throwback to January 2021 and Ian Paisley Jnr's epiphany about how the ERG weren't really the DUP's best friends... A throwback to January 2021 and Ian Paisley Jnr's epiphany about how the ERG weren't really the DUP's best friends...

LET'S rewind, just for fun, to that stirring moment at Westminster, in January 2021, when the penny finally dropped for Ian Og. He stood up in the House and, addressing the half-empty benches that usually greet Norn Iron issues, pointing a quivering finger at his erstwhile Tory chums, and asked: "What did we do to members on those benches over there to be screwed over by this protocol?"

His political epiphany was completed earlier this year when he finally realised that the Tories were becoming "English nationalists". He just used the wrong verb tense, because they always had been. It was only the poor Duppers, who thought the poshos in the European Research Group were their mates, who hadn't noticed.

Now Rishi Sunak is putting the wind up them again by pausing the Protocol bill's progress in the Lords, to give space to the negotiations with the EU to iron out the problems in the Brexit divorce deal - hopefully in time for a Valentine's Day love-in.

Nobody believes the Downing Street denials. The PM is desperate to get a workable deal and it will be up to the DUP to accept a change in trading arrangements does not change its constitutional position. Which is precisely what Jeffrey said years ago, before he allowed himself to be led by the nose by Jim Allister and Jamie Bryson.

The problem for the DUP is that they allowed themselves to be painted into a corner and now they have to spin whatever settlement the UK and EU come up with, or just keep the Assembly in permanent cold storage until their supporters finally start seeing sense. It might be a long wait.

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REMEMBER the outrage from DUP politicians at the Irish women footballers chanting "Ooh ah, up the Ra?" Their disgust was raised at every opportunity on TV, radio, print and social media and it went on for weeks, gathering more and more aggrieved posturing as time went on. "This is how us unionists would be treated in a united Ireland," they fumed.

Wouldn't it be good if they showed the same anger at the news, revealed by BBC Spotlight, that loyalist paramilitaries are targeting people who use food banks, offering loans to help their cash crisis, then charging criminal levels of interest, pushing vulnerable people in their own community into further spiralling debts?

One man borrowed £500 from these loan sharks only to be told a month later, that he now owed £1,300. Some women were having to use their own prescription drugs to augment the money they owed.

What does the Loyalist Communities Council have to say about this? Maybe the DUP could have a word during their next meeting. Or is it all a media conspiracy to demonise those misunderstood folk whose only crime is loyalty - loyalty to gangsterism?

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THERE comes a time in every woman's life when she realises she is becoming her mother.

When we used to ask her what she wanted for Christmas, her response was always the same: "Your dad and I don't need anything. You all need your money so don't be spending it on stuff we don't need."

Long before the money saving expert Martin Lewis came up with the idea of not buying presents at Christmas because of the current cost of living crisis, our parents already had long experience of making do with less, and they couldn't stand wastefulness.

My da didn't see the point in sending cards to people he saw regularly and thought they should be reserved for overseas relatives. The cost of stamps now will have many agreeing with him. My mum used to smooth out wrapping paper to use next year, even though she could never remember where she put it.

Now I hear myself saying the same thing to my adult offspring: "We don't need anything, you save your money."

Choosing gifts is too difficult anyway. It's a knack my da never achieved either. He once famously bought mum a chip cutter for Christmas, and couldn't understand her annoyance. He had bought it at the Ideal Home Exhibition in September, and had stored it away, convinced he had finally nailed present buying, until he saw her face when she opened it.

Still digging that hole, he kept on demonstrating how easy it was to use: "You just put the spud in and push down the handle and there you go, chips cut."

But a lesson was learnt. No kitchen appliance was ever presented as a personal gift ever again. Husbands take note.