New DUP leader Poots denies party division

BELFAST: New DUP leader Edwin Poots has denied his party is divided.

The Stormont Agriculture Minister was ratified by his party following a stormy meeting at a Belfast hotel on Thursday night.

Outgoing leader Arlene Foster and several senior figures including Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Gavin Robinson and Diane Dodds left the building before Poots rose to give his speech.

Paul Bell, a DUP member of 20 years from Foster’s Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency, dramatically resigned from the party over its treatment of her. He hit out at those who ousted Foster, and warned the party stands to lose thousands of votes at the next election. “This is going to be a real problem for the DUP. The votes that are going to be shed by the DUP is not in their hundreds, it’s in their thousands. It’s in their tens of thousands,” he said.

“We cannot go round the doors, the people in Fermanagh and South Tyrone will vote for anyone but the DUP. That is because, not of an election, that is because of what took place before the election.”

Poots later addressed the media alongside the newly ratified deputy leader Paula Bradley, with supporters gathered behind him.

He described the meeting as “good” and said it is a “great privilege” to now lead the party that his father had helped form 50 years ago. Poots said there had been a debate and a contest, and that the contest “had been decided”.

“We will move forward in a united way,” he said. “The DUP is not a divided party, the DUP has went through an electoral contest, the first in 50 years, and everybody that goes through an electoral contest will have some passion, and passion is good in politics. “I like to see people having passion, sometimes even when they are people contesting with me. I like to see people who are passionate in their arguments.”

Poots added that he hoped to be able to speak to Bell “in the near future”.

“Sometimes people don’t like the outcome and they do things in the heat of the moment, I have a lot of respect for the gentleman,” he said.

Poots narrowly defeated Sir Jeffrey Donaldson earlier this month in the party’s first leadership contest.

In a speech following his ratification, he vowed to revive unionism and scrap the Northern Ireland Protocol. “We will consistently roll back the objectional provisions of the Protocol, as we have been doing,” he said.

Poots said his challenge was to encourage supporters of unionism to get out and vote. He also called for a “united unionist coalition” ahead of the next Assembly elections.