If you were to tie me up in a chair and demand to know the word that automatically popped into my mind at the name ‘Edwin Poots’, it would be glum. Even with the serious make-over he’s had, glumness radiates like lumpy porridge from Edwin’s features.
But be fair: Pootsy has a lot to be glum about. He is the man behind, or maybe the man directly in front of the man behind the sudden assassination of Arlene Foster as leader of the DUP. Carrying that thought with you might make the most convivial of us feel a bit morose. Not only that, but Pootsy is, as I write, the man responsible for a DUP so divided , there are those who will tell you the DUP is mortally wounded, such is the depth and scope of the division that has suddenly become public.
If Pootsy gets around to nominating a cabinet, he will be anxious to reward the right-wing of his party which put him where he is. He’ll also be anxious to regain support among the, um, comparatively left of his party, the good Lord Jeffrey’s lot. But with Nigel Dodds, Diane Dodds, Gavin Robinson and Gregory Campbell on Jeffrey’s side, it is stretching things a bit to talk in terms of left.
Will Pootsy be able to satisfy both wings in his appointments? Almost certainly not. Word is that the twisted Eleventh-night fire-starter Paul Givan will be given the place of First Minister. However much that may cause dancing in the streets by those who love the Eleventh Night and detest the Irish language, it’ll pose serious questions for Pootsy.
For a start, Michelle O’Neill has made clear there must be no false dawns about Irish, and that the Act negotiated must be implemented. “There can be no stepping back on the commitments that were made and there can be no more false dawns.”
This request has been supported by – of all people – Arlene Foster. Yes, Virginia, the one who wouldn’t grant an Irish language act on the grounds you don’t feed a crocodile. She has now said that the Assembly could collapse if Pootsy doesn’t deliver on the promised act. The fact that she’s right doesn’t do anything to settle Pootsy’s nerves.
Pass an Irish Language Act and you just know that it’ll be seen as betrayal among many of his supporters, and Jim Allister will be onto it like a half-starved crocodile. Fail to pass an Irish Language Act and any notion of winning soft Nationalists to vote for continued union with Britain will be as likely as Paul Givan declaring that he’d now like to sing a few verses of “Four Green Fields”.
Will the DUP get many votes in Fermanagh/South Tyrone in a year’s time? Hardly. Will Pootsy out-Allister big Jim? Not a chance.
They used to say that the first item at any republican meeting was the Split. Except that what the DUP has conjured up here is not so much a split as a Grand Canyon running neatly down the middle of the party.
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