DUP conference: fighting back

A year of controversy ended on a positive note for Peter Robinson, dismissing opposition and rebranding his party for the “new Northern Ireland”. Peter Cheney reports on the DUP conference.

2010 could not have started better for the DUP’s critics but as the year concluded, the party clearly had the upper hand. Around 600 members filled the La Mon conference hall to hear a leader whom many had not expected to last to November.

In combative and upbeat form, Peter Robinson looked forward to Gerry Adams becoming a Crown Steward and Bailiff on his resignation as MP. One of those posts is currently held by Iris Robinson. No mention was made of her, although Robinson thanked the party for supporting him and seemed overwhelmed by its warm reception.

Neither was the UUP mentioned. The whole thrust of Robinson’s address was to position the DUP as the successful, constructive leading “party of Northern Ireland”, reaching out to more and more voters among the province’s new generation.

A shared society growing up and living as “one united community” beckoned, in a distinct shift from ‘For God and Ulster’. Absent in person, Ian Paisley was due to get a brief mention but was left out.

Robinson wants to hold the middle ground and the Ulster Unionists need to claw it back for any kind of electoral revival. Ignoring them is a sign of how much the DUP has changed and the UUP’s fairly weak position as the Assembly poll nears.

Though not named, the TUV appeared as the wreckers, preparing to enter Stormont with a Kango hammer. Jim Allister is on course for an Assembly seat but his party’s general election failure cancelled them out as a serious threat.

The First Minister had to allude to his own political defeat, rallying the members around retaking East Belfast, the number one priority at the next Westminster election.

People “want to see results” rather than studying the mechanics of government, he noted before a brief rebuke against the media – a traditional nemesis. Rows between the Assembly parties, he did concede, had given journalists material to work with.

And so to the results. In Brownite style, the audience was bombarded with numbers, new houses, free travel for “everyone like myself over the age of 60” and the UK’s lowest household taxes. Some mesmerised delegates appeared to stare blankly ahead until a joke about 530 buses coming at once.

Southern sympathy

A decade ago, a DUP leader would have gloated if the Republic had faced financial turmoil. Robinson, though, highlighted Northern Ireland’s “selfish, strategic and economic interest” in the South and also Ireland’s sensitivity over independence.

That said, the crisis made it easier to lambast some nationalists. Margaret Ritchie needed to get real. Taking Gerry Adams’ economic advice was disastrous and Robinson quickly jumped on Caitríona Ruane’s quote that “there’s never been a better time to have a united Ireland”. Delegates enjoyed the jungle jokes.

Devolution was at its strongest when the Assembly united to condemn the March 2009 murders. “It perhaps wouldn’t be remarkable anywhere else in the world,” he commented. As for that wider world, his praise for local troops in Afghanistan was heartfelt as was an admiration for American business leaders selling the investment case for Northern Ireland.

Robinson’s call for a single schools system had sparked debate and he repeated his call for the different sides to sit down and talk it through. There was no applause for this point, which seemed more likely from the Alliance Party.

Journalists “couldn’t be more wrong” for focusing on a race to be First Minister. Instead, he claimed the DUP were focused on moving Northern Ireland forward with “21st century solutions” so it was “vital” that they remained the largest party. “Common cause” with Sinn Féin was possible but his party would “hold our ground” when differences came up.

Occasional Christmas decorations hung from the ceiling and, as usual, a flag seemed to sit under every seat. Three shot up after he criticised Margaret Ritchie, a dozen after another jibe at Gerry Adams. A sea of them waved at the finale.

Overall, the impression was of a party with its worst troubles behind it. Sammy Wilson, in his own words, was a “financial Jeremiah” after the Old Testament prophet bringing bad news or the master in Oliver Twist with ministers queuing up for more. However, there was also good news: “119 days” until Caitríona Ruane’s departure as Education Minister, “Gerry Adams is emigrating” and Jim Allister becoming the fixer or the “Jimmy Saville of Ulster politics”.

A rendition of ‘We will not be moved’ cheered Robinson from the stage, while the conference cameraman turned his view to the DUP logo. The party sees itself as the guardian of traditional Ulster values, sometimes the outsiders but also Northern Ireland’s modernising leaders. A gospel chorus familiar to Free Presbyterian congregations puts it well: ‘Tis old yet ever new.’

* plus for peers in the House of Lords