Is the DUP trying to bring down power-sharing in Northern Ireland?
The latest leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Edwin Poots, resigned last night after a bungled nomination process for the first minister of Northern Ireland position left most of his party members voting against him. In the end, Poots got his way and the DUPs Paul Givan was appointed first minister, despite his partys MPs and AMs voting 24-4 against nominating him. Poots had been in post for less than a month. It looks like Northern Irelands largest party is at war with itself. But it points to a deeper reality. The DUP has never supported the Good Friday Agreement: it was the only major party not to agree to the peace settlement in 1998, and has always been ambivalent  at best  about it. In particular, the DUP never liked sharing power in Northern Ireland with nationalist parties such as Sinn Fin. It now seems that many of its members are trying to end the power-sharing agreement altogether. We win on government secrecy! Weve just won a three-year transparency battle against Michael Goves department. Donate now  In 2003, the then DUP leader, Ian Paisley, said: The truth is that the so-called Good Friday agreement has the potential that those who signed up to it wanted  the potential destruction of this province, this place in the United Kingdom  Unless we destroy the agreement, we will be destroyed forever.  And the compromises that the party has made since then are being unravelled by the contradictions of Brexit. Border crisis  There are only three broad ways to solve the border crisis that Brexit has unleashed in Northern Ireland in the immediate future. Firstly, to continue the current arrangement, under the Northern Ireland Protocol. This means a regulatory border in the Irish Sea  effectively, a customs border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Secondly, an arrangement whereby the whole of the UK is in the customs union. This means that there would be no border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, but it would also curtail the UKs ability to undercut the EU on workers rights and environmental standards  a key aim of Boris Johnsons Brexit. This arrangement was the essence of Theresa Mays (failed) Chequers plan of 2018. Thirdly, a hard border with the Republic of Ireland. And as theres no way that Sinn Fin would sign up to that, it would effectively require shutting nationalists out of the governance of Northern Ireland, and breaching the international treaty signed with the Irish government as part of the Good Friday Agreement. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement ended 30 years of political violence by delivering power-sharing. It meant there would have to be nationalists in Northern Irelands government, that the days of the unionists having a monopoly on power were over. It is worth noting that the DUP opposed the agreement on the grounds that it required nationalists to be involved in the running of Northern Ireland. The Democratic in the partys name refers to the belief that democracy means majority rule, which excludes minorities  even if those minorities make up more than 40% of the population. Since 1998, the DUP has been a largely unhappy participant in the institutions that the treaty established, focusing mainly on funnelling government money to supporters through programmes such as the Renewable Heat Initiative scandal  which paid people 1.08 for every 1 of woodchip they burned  and led to the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2017. The party only entered government after signing up to the St Andrews Agreement in 2006, which devolved policing and justice, but left the fundamentals of the Good Friday Agreement in place.