Northern Ireland coalition unstable after election of new radical leader of ruling DUP party

The collaboration with Sinn Fein is now threatened. This radicalization can also have consequences for the Brexit deal. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is therefore worried.

Poots, the 55-year-old agriculture minister, succeeds Arlene Foster, who was kicked out last month by her disgruntled colleagues. Within the pro-British party, the consequences of the Brexit deal are very unhappy and there are also growing fears that Northern Ireland is heading towards reunification with the rest of Ireland. The pro-British DUP and the pro-Irish Sinn Fein are currently forming a pacifist coalition.

In the first leadership election of the fifty-year-old party, Poots had 19 representatives behind him, two more than MP Jeffrey Donaldson. While Donaldson wanted to continue Foster’s relatively moderate policies, Poots is more in the tradition of founder Ian Paisley, the famous pastor who died seven years ago. Poots fiercely opposes homosexuality and abortion, and believes the Earth is no more than 4,000 years old.