Brexit.

[seafoid]

All they saw was border fences and checkpoints and customs posts etc and the end of the GFA.
Totally ignored the 57% vote to stay in the EU and ignored the fact that they're not 60% of the population any more.

Boris Johnson shafted them but they wouldn't vote for anything else.
They brought it on themselves.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/10/21/tories-must-unite-stop-labours-plot-wreck-boris-johnsons-brexit/
For the DUP, the separate treatment of Northern Ireland is unacceptable. Yet when Theresa May went to the extreme length of keeping the whole of the UK in a closer arrangement with the EU to save them from this outcome, they were emphatically against that as well. They are also against leaving without a deal. Did it not occur to them when they campaigned for Brexit that it would be very likely to entail one of the three outcomes they are now against?

https://www.ft.com/content/62a42fe4-f3e7-11e9-b018-3ef8794b17c6
Mr Johnson has been shown to be as treacherous as his critics would have us believe. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the arguments, his sellout of his coalition partners, Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist party, was a spectacular betrayal. Speaking to their conference, before he was leader, he asserted that "no British Conservative government could or should sign up" to a regulatory and customs border in the Irish Sea. He last week signed up to one.

[93-DY-SAM]

Mark Carruthers wiped the floor with Arlene tonight.

Yeah, he caught her well with the high percentages in the maunfacturing companies' survey.

He nailed her on the most important point - it's all about the constitutional issue and f*%k all to do with trade and business etc.

The simple fact of the matter is the DUP wanted the biggest Trump style wall they could get between the North and the South. Brexit was going to be the thing to put those pesky Fenians back in their box and they could revel in the glory days again of lording it over them. They put the house on Brexit delivering that and it has backfired in predictable fashion.

I'm not even sure that is actually true. Don't get me wrong, many of them would love nothing better than for such a situation to materialise but any of them with an ounce of strategic vision could not deny the fact that demographics are gradually eroding the unionist majority. They can no longer lord it over nationalists in the way they have done in the past and calling for a hard border on the island, while privately desirable to many of them, would simply have created a clamour for a border poll.

The reality is that they never really expected Brexit to actually win and therefore there was no real debate or consideration given to the outworjkings of it. It was all about playing the Superbrits to impress the 'mainlanders'. Just another attempt to prove their loyalty to the crown and to an audience who care little for them. I think Simon Hamilton was the only DUP member who expressed reservations about campaigning for Brexit and he was quickly shuffled aside, he must have a wry smile at how events have unfolded since.

The reality is that any hint of a concession to nationalists or perceived dilution of their Britishness and the Orange Order and Loyalist paramilitaries are wheeled out as a shield. We've seen it with the Irish language act, with the loyalist meetings and smear campaign against Finucane during the last Westminster election and now with the Brexit Sea Border. The Orange Order and the Loyalists are the tail wagging the DUP dog.

You are 100% right about the Orange Order and Loyalist groups being the tail that is waging the dog but I think you are giving the DUP more credit about their Brexit position than they deserve. Unionism is so short sighted they can't see more than one day ahead at a time, never mind a week, a month or even a year. It's all about the Union and being Super Brits today and to hell with anything else.

[Jeepers Creepers]

Don't write the DUP off, they are the masters of falling in shit and come up smelling of roses.

[marty34]

True, the OO is calling the shots now.

[balladmaker]

Don't write the DUP off, they are the masters of falling in shit and come up smelling of roses.

Don't fancy their chances this time ... what they're asking for in reality is a renegotiation of the torturous Brexit deal ... can't see either the EU or UK wanting to touch it anytime soon.  Their only hope is to play the orange drum and vote the NI protocol down in 4 years time .... but that won't happen either as I can't see there ever being a unionist majority in the assembly again.

[bennydorano]

There'll be no changes of any magnitude, extensions of grace periods will likely be granted by the EU and claimed as a victory of some shape or form. The Loyalist rumblings turning out to be factional feuding rather than protocol anger will also have taken a bit of the wind out of DUP sails

[restorepride]

Don't write the DUP off, they are the masters of falling in shit and come up smelling of roses.

Don't fancy their chances this time ... what they're asking for in reality is a renegotiation of the torturous Brexit deal ... can't see either the EU or UK wanting to touch it anytime soon.  Their only hope is to play the orange drum and vote the NI protocol down in 4 years time .... but that won't happen either as I can't see there ever being a unionist majority in the assembly again.

I agree.  On TUV this evening (sorry, I meant UTV!!) they gave Nigel Dodds a free run on asking for more signatures (must break broadcasting rules/standards?) and then wheeled out, as a voice of Loyalism, a lady I  had never heard of before!  A lost and planted tribe?   In fact they actually are a panted tribe, buried in the bible shite, and lost!   Makes sense, really.

[Rossfan]

https://www.rte.ie/news/ulster/2021/0205/1195383-larne-port/

[tonto1888]

https://www.rte.ie/news/ulster/2021/0205/1195383-larne-port/

That was known last week. A political stunt. Nothing more

[restorepride]

https://www.rte.ie/news/ulster/2021/0205/1195383-larne-port/

Yes they have all returned after the threat which no-one could confirm, from people who no-one could see or speak to!!!!!!

This 'invisible threat' persuaded Edwind Poots to stand down.  Should he not have asked the Psni to intervene?

Anyhow, Edwin has stepped down and that is good news for all those who don't believe that Mary was a virgin!!!

[seafoid]

Don't write the DUP off, they are the masters of falling in shit and come up smelling of roses.

Brexit is English nationalism so by definition it is a crisis for Unionism

The DUP are sponsored by Currymi Yogutt. They are playing senior hurling. With hockey sticks.

[Rossfan]

Following on their watching the UVF march about East Belfast unhindered another OG by the PSNI

https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2021/0205/1195387-belfast-man-arrested/

[HiMucker]

Following on their watching the UVF march about East Belfast unhindered another OG by the PSNI

https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2021/0205/1195387-belfast-man-arrested/

RTE only two days behind

[imtommygunn]

This last week really does raise so many questions here between impartiality of psni, divisive rhetoric on brexit, taking staff out of those ports for their own safety etc. It would be fine to say some people haven't moved on but the psni move at this particular time I find very worrying. The dup are going to resort to division as it is the only way they will survive and they will do that even if it costs lives. We know that well by now. The psni should be impartial. It is a very worrying development that business on the ormeau road.

[red hander]

The PSNI is still run by senior officers of utterly discredited RUC. As a sidebar, one of them is now running Garda. How the f**k did that happen?  But I digress. Byrne, who is a bona fide idiot (check out his history), was appointed by Policing Board, so he wouldn't have got job but for acquiescence of Shinners. OK, they wanted to stop one of these bigots getting top job, so they accepted a f**king clown, but what they should have been doing was trying to rid police top echelon of these c***ts. They couldn't see the wood for the trees, the stupid bastards. What happened on Ormeau Road, especially in light of UVF shenanigans in east Belfast, has proved the PSNI will never be accepted as an unbiased police force. No good Shinners whining about what happened, they carry lot of blame. f**k the PSNI.