BRENDAN Behan’s most famous quip was that when republicans met the first item on the agenda was the split. Au contraire, Brendan. Gerry Adams and others have stressed how careful they were to keep all republicans up to date during the period leading up to the Good Friday Agreement. The unity notable among the various strands of republicanism contrasts sharply with our near neighbours and our really near neighbours. Near neighbour first.
Keir Starmer, to become leader of the British Labour Party, had to convince the public that Jeremy Corbyn was antisemitic, which he did without blushing. Two years after a spectacularly successful election, it’s now Starmer’s turn to face the leadership guillotine as King Andy Burnham rides into town.
And then there’s our really near neighbour, Jeffrey Donaldson. To say that the story of Jeffrey’s double life came as a body-blow would be an understatement. The talk of London boyfriends, mistresses and wild drinking bouts are sprouting like the weeds in my driveway, with Ian Óg Paisley weighing in with his account of Jeffrey engaging in projectile vomiting all over the Mayor of Beijing.
It all seems so unlike the Jeffrey we knew – Daniel O’Donnellesque, religious fish on lapel, speaking in a soft, soothing voice. How on Earth did he do this Jekyll and Hyde transformation once he hit London? No wonder he refused to give up his seat at Westminster for the comparative backwater of the Stormont Assembly.
Gavin Robinson, Jeffrey’s successor as leader, has done all he can to distance himself from Jeffrey, and so have a lot of his erstwhile political colleagues. All sorts of arms-length words have been used to impress the public that they weren’t in any way involved or even aware of his “vile” actions. But no matter how much they protest, Jeffrey’s sins are opening deep fissures within the DUP ranks.
Edwin Poots is busy telling anyone who will listen that he was never one who would have covered up for Jeffrey. Ian Óg Paisley has suggested that he told Poots about another dalliance Jeffrey was guilty of some time back, which Edwin clearly didn’t make public. Now with calls for him to step aside from his role of Speaker in Stormont, Edwin is feeling the heat and has protested his ignorance of all matters Jeffrian: “If anybody has any notion that I done [sic] anything to protect Jeffrey Donaldson, after all that he had done to me previously, they are living in some other world or other planet.”
Lest we forget: Ian Óg, on a BBC Spotlight programme, said that a woman had made clear her complaint about Jeffrey to him some time ago, but that she didn’t want to make a formal complaint. She told Ian Óg and Ian Óg said he told Poots, then party leader, about this woman’s concerns. It is clear that Poots is now feeling the cold wind filter up his trouser leg.
All this is causing the electorate to do some hard rethinking about the DUP. Because it’s not a recent bout of backstabbing. Remember way back when Ian Senior’s wife Eileen made clear her views on the former MP for North Belfast, referring to him as "a cheeky sod"?
The revelations about Jeffrey have left all of us gasping for air, but the ones really struggling for breath are his former chums in the DUP. Once dignified colleagues have turned into political ferrets in a bag, gouging each other with fierce energy.
So answer me this: Do the electorate like parties that are clearly divided? You know the answer, the DUP knows the answer. The question then is: Do they have time to kiss and make up, as well as banish that bad Jeffrey smell, before next May’s elections come rumbling on stage?
