Opinion

Alex Kane: DUP's wounds exposed for all to see

Alex Kane

Alex Kane

Alex Kane is an Irish News columnist and political commentator and a former director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party.

Alex Kane
Alex Kane Alex Kane

When I woke on Friday morning it was a bit like finding myself in a parallel universe.

The DUP had just had a nightmare and lengthy meeting to ratify their new leader; key members of the party walked out when the leader rose to speak (ironically about uniting the party); a member resigned live on air; another described it as the worst meeting they had attended in 40 years; and Ian Paisley treated the waiting media to an exercise in piety which would have embarrassed Uriah Heep.

This was the sort of freak show spectacle I was used to when I worked in the UUP (and for the sake of a rather pleasing consistency it even had Jeffrey Donaldson staging a walkout, although he didn't tear anything up this time).

I know one shouldn't take pleasure in other people's misery, but after 18 years of self-satisfied smirking and up-themselves arrogance from some in the DUP about how much better they were at everything than the UUP, it was hard not to laugh. So I didn't even bother trying to stop myself.

It was also hard not to feel just a little bit sorry for Edwin Poots. That said, I couldn't help thinking of that wonderfully brutal line: "But, apart from that Mrs Lincoln, what did you think of the play'?

He looked weak when he entered the ratification meeting. He looked weaker when he left. His sorrows weren't just coming as single spies, they were coming in battalions; and he didn't have a convincing response for any of them.

In its 50-year history the DUP has never been in this position before: its wounds red and raw and exposed for all to see. That's what a leadership contest does to a party. And it's like all of the grievances, vendettas, unsettled scores and freezing-cold revenges that have piled up since September 1971 just burst out of the cupboard in one vast torrent of angst. At moments like that fingers are pointed at everyone, sides are taken, the unspoken is roared and usually complacent political mice are emboldened. It's graphic and it's traumatic, but rarely is it therapeutic.

The DUP has only had two phases in its entire history. The first one, lasting from 1971-2003, was as the slightly poorer cousin of unionism; always playing also-ran to the UUP and dismissed as not quite fit for the top table of politics. The second one, starting with the eclipsing of the UUP in late 2003 and then a run of convincing victories as the undisputed majority voice of unionism, seems likely to end with the Wagnerian dumping of Foster, the farcical crowning of Poots and an internal civil war where no quarter will be given and no mercies granted. It's like a Netflix epic for belligerent fundamentalists: Game of Thrans, if you like.

Can the party rebuild and recover? Hmm. The next election is less than a year away: but I know from my time in the UUP that it's impossible to build an agreed, united strategy if key members of the party are behaving like the Borgias on coke and plotting revenge on a round-the-clock rota. It's a bit like that moment in Fawlty Towers when Basil and Manuel are rolling around the floor and a psychiatrist, who is a guest, mutters: "There's enough material there for an entire conference.' That's how bad it is.

But there is one thing to remember about the DUP. They play the long game. They waited 32 years to get to the top table. They've enjoyed being there. They won't give up easily or quietly. Ironically, their fate may lie in the hands of the UUP.

Doug Beattie is in a stronger position than any UUP leader since David Trimble succeeded Jim Molyneaux in September 1995. So strong, in fact, he may reject any electoral-pact overtures from Poots. That the DUP now needs the UUP's help to survive an electoral crisis is, of course, the ultimate example of a parallel universe.