It’s often tempting to categorise politicians into discrete categories: the dispassionate pragmatists, best represented by the Eurocrats who line the corridors of Berlaymont; and the hardline ideologues, those who take easily to rousing speeches and grand gestures of principle. But the Democratic Unionist Party’s new leader, Edwin Poots, defies such simple characterisation.
Speaking to BBC journalist Stephen Nolan last week, Poots made a striking comment: “I can be British because I live in the British Isles, I can be Irish because I live on the island of Ireland, I can be an Ulsterman because I live in the province of Ulster, and I can be Northern Irish because I live in Northern Ireland.”
“I can be all four at one time, and I am,” he added.
It is a surprising remark for a loyalist. Poots’s comfort in acknowledging a plurality of identities (within himself and Northern Ireland) is a trait his predecessor Arlene Foster often seemed to lack. And it is certainly noteworthy to see a staunch—one of the staunchest—unionists in the state happily refer to himself as Irish. But the comments were shrewd, designed to take the sting out of nationalism’s tail: if a border poll came around tomorrow, why disturb the status quo when your identity is accepted and catered for by even the unionists?
Poots is in a uniquely privileged position to make these statements. When his leadership of the DUP was announced he was quick to remind the press that his father was a founding member of the party; that the DUP and its traditions were encoded in his blood; that he joined the party as a teenager following the killing of an Ulster Unionist MP in 1981. He has been vocal about his evangelical faith as a creationist who believes the earth was created 6,000 years ago. His social conservatism is a central facet of his political profile (opposing the decriminalisation of abortion, for example).
Thanks to his political heritage and refusal to shy away from his faith, Poots’s credibility as an evangelical and a loyalist has rarely been called into question. This affords him the space to comfortably assert the values of pluralism without fear of undermining his unionist credentials. It also allows him to strike deals with opposition forces like Sinn Féin, and to offer concessions where necessary. It has let him earn the reputation of a pragmatist. But that is a reputation borne out of his long-held and uncompromising ideology.
This feature of Poots’s political character is present across his career. During his tenure as health minister he pioneered the centralisation of children’s heart surgery to Dublin—meaning children from Northern Ireland could travel to the republic, rather than mainland Britain, for vital procedures. Pursuing an all-island approach (treating Ireland as if it were a single entity and not an island occupied by two nations) may seem incompatible with the DUP’s political project. But at such a precarious moment for the union, increasing cooperation between Dublin and Belfast could be its saving grace.
Poots is certainly not unwise to this. Many of his opponents see unionism’s reticence to pursue all-island policies as one of its great strategic failings. Were a border poll called, many of the undecided voters, so the argument goes, may not be compelled by reunification’s cause if they already enjoy the practical benefits of an invisible border and all-island approaches in areas like healthcare. Offering small concessions where it matters undermines reunification’s pull, and appearing as a moderate hardens unionism’s grip on Northern Ireland. It’s an argument Poots is willing to bet on.
Now the Northern Ireland Protocol, detested by unionists for erecting a so-called sea border between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain, is the most intractable issue the DUP faces (though the irony of its responsibility for the border’s creation is not lost on many observers). Poots has made it his mission to advocate for its removal. However, his role in implementing many of its provisions as agriculture minister risks tarnishing the legitimacy of his position among unionists. But Poots's credibility as an effective and dedicated unionist is hard to compromise. And he appears happy to rely on this hard-won reputation for now. He is, at the very least, expected to mount stronger opposition to the policy than Foster.
Nolan asked: “If you are so against the protocol, why don’t you resign as the minister who puts in the checks?” Poots gave the ultimate pragmatist’s response: he believes he is better off arguing for its abolition from within the system rather than outside it. But he may have fashioned himself a gordian knot. It is not within the DUP’s power to scrap the protocol, and Westminster shows little interest in doing so. He can make the case against it all he likes, but he has set colleagues and voters up for inevitable disappointment by promising the undeliverable. When it comes to the assembly elections next year—which may see Sinn Féin become the largest party in the state, and the DUP lose its more liberal voters to the centrist Alliance party—this could cause Poots no end of problems.
But when it comes to protecting the union, Poots has shown himself to be a smart operator, capable of pragmatism only thanks to his ideology. As he proves, they are not so easily separable instincts.
