This is more than the humiliation of Donaldson, but the collapse of the DUP’s remaining reputation for competence

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/sam-mcbride/this-is-more-than-the-humiliation-of-donaldson-but-the-collapse-of-the-dups-remaining-reputation-for-competence/a1938439017.html

What unfolded on Monday night was not just the humiliation of Sir Jeffrey Donaldson by a man he thought he could outsmart, but the collapse of any remaining aura of invincibility around the DUP.

When an email of the supposedly secretive DUP executive meeting were leaked to the loyalist activist Jamie Bryson on Friday night, there were suggestions that the DUP’s powerful chief executive, Timothy Johnston, might have secretly inserted different changes in each of the emails to the 130 invitees in an attempt to unmask who has been leaking.

Former DUP special adviser Tim Cairns – who spent years working with Johnston, first in DUP headquarters and then in Stormont Castle – replied caustically: “Gosh you give TJ too much credit. If there’s typos they are his – he’s no #JazathaChristie”.
The evidence of tonight suggests Cairns was correct. Often those outside the DUP have an inflated sense of the party’s centralised nerve centre – in reality, Mr Johnston, his brother-in-law John Robinson, and about half of the 12 party officers.

It is astonishing that anyone could be able to live-tweet the entirety of such a secretive and sensitive meeting. For that person to be the individual who right now is probably more dangerous to Donaldson’s leadership than any elected politician is jaw-dropping.

Donaldson can’t dismiss him as an upstart because he was happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with him on platforms prior to the last Assembly election.
Tight lips and faces of thunder as DUP faces evening of turmoil
He can’t claim to be appalled at his methods because his methods were by then well known.
He can’t claim to be surprised that Bryson is standing against the compromise deal which Donaldson now wants to sell because that is precisely what Bryson always said he would do.

He can’t claim to have lacked warning that this might happen because he was told Bryson would turn on him if he recanted on his myriad pledges.
Bryson has already toppled one unionist leader, yet Donaldson seemed to underestimate him as someone who would be useful to shore up the DUP’s collapsing support but who could then be cast aside without consequence.
He has at points sounded in denial about the fact that senior members of the DUP were obviously leaking to the loyalist and in denial about the implications of that fact.
Just last week, DUP deputy leader Gavin Robinson criticised what he’d read in the newspapers about DUP divisions, telling the House of Commons that it “bears no resemblance to reality” and that his party was “at one”.
Readers can judge for themselves who has the best understanding of the DUP.

But as devastatingly embarrassing as last night is for the DUP and its leader, the real sting is more substantive.
Prior to Monday night’s meeting, Donaldson had decided not to give the meeting the full text of the deal on the Irish Sea border. That had increased internal suspicion as to what those on the party’s ruling executive were not trusted to see in a text which was substantively agreed six weeks ago.
The DUP leader was instead giving the meeting his impression of what the deal meant. He was, in essence, asking them to put their trust in his judgment rather than exercising their own.
There can’t be a single person in Northern Ireland who is now ignorant of the headache-inducing complexity of Brexit.

In part because it hasn’t grasped much of this complexity, the DUP has repeatedly failed to deliver what its voters want delivered.
One person who has dealt with the DUP on Brexit issues was recently scathing about the party’s technical understanding of the issues.
After tonight, any attempt to tell voters ‘don’t worry – we’ve got this all sorted’ is going to be met by guffaws from some of those voters.
Farce as details of top secret DUP executive briefing leaked on social media amid claims of ‘meeting mayhem’
The party handled this negotiation in an ultra-centralised way where a tiny coterie of figures around Donaldson were involved. That helped reduce leaks. But the downside is that there were fewer people to spot potential pitfalls.

Now those people are the ones going to be selling a complicated deal, which was always going to be tricky because it was never going to meet the seven tests the DUP had set out as essential.

And in the public consciousness those are the people who couldn’t stop details of their secret gathering from leaking.
They’re the people who couldn’t stop the location then leaking, with media and protesters at the gates by the time they arrived.
They’re the people who couldn’t stop what seems to have been a live audio feed of proceedings getting to Bryson.

They’re the people who – ven when Bryson took the risky step of live-tweeting it – couldn’t close down the leak over several hours.
And they’re the people who – if Bryson’s reports are accurate – first faced desperate accusations from the floor that maybe PSNI close protection officers were leaking and then were told by Donaldson that the PSNI had some sort of mobile phone blocker which it had deployed, even though the only damage being done to the DUP leader was political humiliation (the PSNI later issued a statement making clear it had done nothing of the sort).

For years, Donaldson tried to undermine and then topple David Trimble at tense gatherings such as tonight’s. He never succeeded in his ultimate goal, but did enough to significantly restrict Trimble’s scope for movement.

Amid the farcical drama, there was also a plot which could have been scripted by Shakespeare: The eager prince eventually gets the crown, and is beset from all sides.

by LoveLaughLarne