Opinion

Time for Peter Robinson to pack his bags

DUP leader Peter Robinson may resign within weeks, according to reports. Picture by Mark Marlow
DUP leader Peter Robinson may resign within weeks, according to reports. Picture by Mark Marlow DUP leader Peter Robinson may resign within weeks, according to reports. Picture by Mark Marlow

There we were calling politics here dead, or dull to the point of lifelessness, and look what happens. Not one but two party leaders are teetering, prey to unfriendly prophecies and in the case of Alasdair McDonnell, big, graceless dunts amidst a harsh chorus of ‘on your way, Alasdair.’

The one similarity with Peter Robinson is that both should be looking out the flip-flops and powering up the Kindles with juicy thrillers. And maybe they would, if anyone close to them could get past the awful, narrow horizons of lives lived inside bubbles to persuade them there must be more to life.

Arrogance, stubbornness, pride and probably in both cases a conviction that theirs has been an energy others lack, all combine to keep them barricaded in. It must be harder by the minute to read those still apparently loyal. Are the palace guards about to go over to the other side? Are they staying purely because they have no future without you?

So we have drama, with elements of tragic farce. Add a loathing inside unionism of almost the sharpness of Ian Paisley attacks on Terence O’Neill or, to jump a mere 30 years, the Paisley/DUP onslaught on David Trimble. The whole show may not do much for the psychology of becalmed but still benighted Northern Ireland. But at moments like this it is undeniable that the media version becomes part of the story. Commentators can hardly ask for more.

It is additional pleasure to note how broadcast immediacy and social media froth can still be trumped by newspaper thoroughness, ability to protect sources, space for analysis.

The News Letter front page report by Sam McBride on Saturday had half a dozen DUP sources foretelling Robinson’s exit or saying it should happen, and very soon. The report must have reverberated all weekend.

Badmouthing the Irish News has clearly seemed a cost-free option inside the DUP. Since most in both communities read only one local paper, if any, what the ‘other’ paper says is irrelevant – although the DUP and perhaps other unionists will have made an exception for the Irish News on Nama.

If your party instinct is to berate journalists whose ‘line’ is unfavourable, you yell down the phone at those who come from the same community as yourself. Diminished by resource-starvation, the News Letter is still the default mouthpiece of mainstream unionism. Saturday’s News Letter report was a reminder of journalistic independence, and the clout it can exert.

‘Figures at various levels; concern across the party; one senior figure telling the News Letter the DUP has been “haemorrhaging” support over recent weeks’ - all, if you are Robinson, surely had a chilling ring of truth to it and amounted to far more than could be effectively dismissed. McBride duly reported that ‘figures close to the First Minister moved to play down the speculation’ and the limp offering from a DUP spokesman that ‘the party is not aware of any plans for him to go at this stage.’

For a controlling personality like Robinson, at the centre of a party that he micro-managed for decades on behalf of its bullying founder, that must have had painful echoes - of the undignified, too long delayed, and in the end forced exit of his much older predecessor.

Rumbling Nama, Jim Wells, Jenny Palmer, Ruth Patterson; the crude and cloth-eared promotion of Emma Pengelly; none of it well handled on top of older damage. If a bruised Robinson has any judgment left it must surely tell him to go the second he announces the agreement, fudged and incomplete, that everyone now expects - since no party, including the Ulster Unionists, wants the structures to tumble at this point.

He can credibly claim health issues. The hardest part will be Mike Nesbitt’s gloating. But Robinson can take comfort in picturing Nesbitt, should the UUP resurgence last, forced in his turn to deal with nationalism, which means Sinn Féin.

The News Letter report should have cleared away any remaining ‘ought to’ and ‘might’. Now almost pitiable, voice apparently permanently strained, boxed into a Trimbleish position and making similar mis-steps to the man the DUP caricatured as ‘the Purple Turtle’, Robinson must know the only remaining ‘ought’ is that he should go for his own sake.

What becomes of the party is for others to determine, as clearly some have been hashing back and forth. Though presumably with little cheer: a fresh start with Nigel Dodds? Sunny Arlene in Stormont? On your way, Peter. Leave them to it.