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Northern Ireland’s biggest pro-UK party is searching for a candidate for Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s Westminster seat ahead of the next general election after the former leader was charged with historical sex offences.
Gavin Robinson, the Democratic Unionist party’s interim leader, said on Monday he did not know if Donaldson was planning to resign as an MP for Lagan Valley.
But since Donaldson had been suspended pending the outcome of his criminal case, “he cannot be a candidate for the DUP”, Robinson told BBC Radio Ulster. Donaldson, 61, has said he will strenuously fight the charges.
“We are now actively working with colleagues to make sure Lagan Valley has a great choice [of Westminster candidate],” Robinson said — the first time the DUP has said it is seeking an alternative candidate for the seat. A UK general election is widely expected later this year.
Donaldson’s resignation on Good Friday sparked his suspension from the party. He is due to appear at Newry magistrates court on April 24.
Donaldson could not immediately be reached for comment.
Robinson said the party would “move forward with our head held high”. While he acknowledged that recent days had been “very difficult”, he insisted “it’s not a DUP story”.
Robinson was closely involved with Donaldson in securing a recent deal with the UK government to overcome unionists’ concerns about post-Brexit trading arrangements, which enabled the DUP in February to end its two-year boycott of the region’s Stormont assembly and executive.
But Robinson, who is MP for East Belfast, challenged his depiction by commentators as a continuity candidate, “I’m my own man,” he said. He gave no indication of when the party would hold a leadership election.
He defended the DUP’s deal from criticism by hardline unionists who argue it does not get rid of the customs border in the Irish Sea created by the post-Brexit trading agreement between London and Brussels. The UK government would be implementing further changes this autumn to end checks on goods remaining in the UK’s internal market system, said Robinson.
He played down divisions within the DUP over the deal, saying the party would “advance into [the general] election and come out the other side as a unified party”.
Robinson also urged the region’s other two unionist parties — the small Ulster Unionist party and the fringe Traditional Unionist Voice — to “come together” ahead of the general election. The TUV recently announced a partnership with Reform UK, the populist rightwing party, in the run-up to the election.
Sinn Féin, which advocates Irish reunification, has already overtaken the DUP as the largest party in the region and has seven MPs — equal to the DUP’s tally now that Donaldson has been suspended from the party. Sinn Féin MPs, however, do not take up their seats in the UK parliament.
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