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Coffee House Shots

Will the DUP lose ground under Edwin Poots?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.42.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2021

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week Edwin Poots was formally endorsed as the DUP's new leader, in a meeting which Arlene Foster, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson (Poots's rival in the leadership campaign) and other senior DUP politicians walked out of before Poots gave a speech. What does the future hold for the divided political party that held so much sway in Westminster during the Brexit process? Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and the Irish Times's Denis Staunton.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:09.3

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0:16.6

Hello and welcome to a special Saturday edition of Coffee House shots.

0:20.3

I'm Katie Balls and I'm joined by James Forsyfe and London Energy of Irish Times, Dennis Staunton. So what next for unionism? This week, the new DUP leader, Edwin Putes, insisted his party is not divided despite a heated meeting which took place to confirm her as the next leader. What went on in

0:39.4

this meeting, Dennis? Well, when he on was two things really. First of all, he was confirmed,

0:44.9

but there was a bit of a procedural dispute as to whether they should have the vote on a secret

0:50.3

ballot or a public vote. And his critics wanted a secret ballot. And the reason they said

0:57.4

they wanted it was because they said there had been some intimidation of his opponents. And according

1:02.5

to one report, Geoffrey Donaldson, who was the man he defeated for the leadership, told the meeting

1:07.3

that some of his campaign team had received threats from the Loyalist

1:12.0

paramilitary organization, the UDA.

1:14.6

And so there were these rather serious allegations going round.

1:18.0

They eventually, the Puts people defeated the motion to have a secret ballot.

1:23.8

They had a public ballot.

1:25.0

He won by 70-something votes to 20-something vote, so it was a convincing

1:29.4

victory, but there was some opposition. And then before he got up to speak, Jeffrey Donaldson

1:34.3

and a number of other senior figures in the party, Nigel Dodds, Diane Dodds, Gavin Robinson,

1:41.2

the MP for East of Belfast. they left the meeting before he actually spoke.

1:47.5

So James, a disunited party?

1:50.4

Yes, and I mean there is a, if one's making a crude historical parallel, one would say that

1:56.0

the danger is that the Brexit is doing to a DUP, what the Good Friday Agreement did to the

2:01.3

Auster Unionist Party, but it is dividing it and pulling it apart. I think this comes

...

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