The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a unionist, loyalist, British nationalistMcAuley, James. Very British Rebels?: The Culture and Politics of Ulster Loyalism. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015. p.140 and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who led the party until 2008. It is currently led by Gavin Robinson, who initially stepped in as an interim after the resignation of Jeffrey Donaldson. It is the second-largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and won five seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom at the 2024 election. The party has been mostly described as right-wing"It will be ‘difficult’ for May to survive, says N Ireland's DUP" , By Vincent Boland & Robert Wright. Financial Times. 9 June 2017. Retrieved 10 June 2017"Who Are The DUP? The Democratic Unionist Party Explained" , LBC. 9 June 2017. Retrieved 10 June 2017. and socially conservative, being anti-abortion and opposing same-sex marriage. The DUP sees itself as defending Britishness and Ulster Protestant culture against Irish nationalism and republicanism. It is also Eurosceptic and supported Brexit.
The DUP evolved from the Protestant Unionist Party and has historically strong links to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, the church Paisley founded. During the Troubles, the DUP opposed sharing power with Irish nationalists or republicans as a means of resolving the conflict, and likewise rejected attempts to involve the Republic of Ireland in Northern Irish affairs. It campaigned against the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973, the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. In the 1980s, the DUP was involved in setting up the loyalist paramilitary movements Third Force and Ulster Resistance, the latter of which helped smuggle a large shipment of weapons into Northern Ireland."A spectre from the past back to haunt peace" . Belfast Telegraph. 10 June 2007. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
For the first three decades of the DUP's history, the Ulster Unionist Party was the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland; however, by 2004, the DUP had overtaken the UUP in terms of seats in both the Northern Ireland Assembly and the UK House of Commons. In 2006, the DUP co-signed the St Andrews Agreement and the following year agreed to enter into power-sharing devolved government with Sinn Féin, who agreed to support the Police Service, courts, and rule of law. Paisley became joint First Minister of Northern Ireland. However, the DUP's only Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Jim Allister, and seven DUP councillors left the party in protest, founding the Traditional Unionist Voice.
Ian Paisley was succeeded as DUP leader and First Minister by Peter Robinson (2008–2015), then by Arlene Foster (2015–2021). After Foster was ousted, Edwin Poots briefly became leader and nominated Paul Givan as First Minister, but was himself forced to step down after three weeks. In June 2021, he was succeeded by Jeffrey Donaldson. In protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol, Givan resigned as First Minister in February 2022, collapsing the Northern Ireland Executive. On 30 January 2024, Donaldson announced that the DUP had agreed a deal with the UK government that resulted in power-sharing being restored. Donaldson resigned as leader on 29 March 2024 after being charged with historical sex offences, with the party's deputy leader, Gavin Robinson, being appointed as interim leader and later confirmed as party leader in May 2024.
History
1970s
The Democratic Unionist Party evolved from the Protestant Unionist Party, which itself grew out of the Ulster Protestant Action movement. The DUP was founded on 30 September 1971 by Ian Paisley, leader of the Protestant Unionist Party, and Desmond Boal, formerly of the Ulster Unionist Party. Paisley, a well-known Protestant fundamentalist minister, was the founder and leader of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. He would lead both the DUP and the Free Presbyterian Church for the next 37 years, and his party and church would be closely linked. When the DUP formed, Northern Ireland was in the midst of an ethnic-nationalist conflict known as the Troubles, which began in 1969 and would last for the next thirty years. The conflict began amid a campaign to end discrimination against the Catholic/Irish nationalist minority by the Protestant/unionist government and police force.Richard English. The State: Historical and Political Dimensions, Charles Townshend, 1998, Routledge, p. 96; .Dominic Bryan. Orange Parades: The Politics of Ritual, Tradition and Control, Pluto Press (2000), p. 94; . This protest campaign was opposed, often violently, by unionists who viewed it as an Irish republican front. Paisley had led the unionist opposition to the civil rights movement. The DUP were more hardline or loyalist than the UUP and its founding arguably stemmed from worries of the Ulster Protestant working class that the UUP was not paying them enough heed."Beyond the Sectarian Divide: the Social Bases and Political Consequences of Nationalist and Unionist Party Competition in Ireland" by Geoffrey Evans and Mary Duffy. In British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 27, No. 1. (January 1997), p.58
The DUP opposed the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973. The Agreement was an attempt to resolve the conflict by setting up a new assembly and government for Northern Ireland in which unionists and Irish nationalists would share power. The Agreement also proposed the creation of a Council of Ireland, which would facilitate co-operation between the governments of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The DUP won eight seats in the 1973 election to the Assembly. Along with other anti-Agreement unionists, the DUP formed the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) to oppose the Agreement. In the February 1974 UK election, the UUUC won 11 out of 12 Northern Ireland seats, while the pro-Agreement unionists failed to win any. On 15 May 1974, anti-Agreement unionists called a general strike aimed at bringing down the Agreement. The strike coordinating committee included DUP leader Paisley, the other UUUC leaders, and the leaders of the loyalist paramilitary groups. The strike lasted fourteen days and brought Northern Ireland to a standstill. Loyalist paramilitaries helped enforce the strike by blocking roads and intimidating workers.David George Boyce and Alan O'Day. Defenders of the Union: a survey of British and Irish unionism since 1801. Routledge, 2001. p.255.Tonge, Jonathan. Northern Ireland: Conflict and Change. Pearson Education, 2002. p.119. On the third day of the strike, loyalists detonated four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, killing 33 civilians.Oireachtas Sub-Committee report on the Barron Report (2004), p.25 The strike led to the downfall of the Agreement on 28 May.
Following the downfall of the Agreement, in 1975 the British government set up a Constitutional Convention, an elected body of unionists and nationalists which would seek agreement on a political settlement for Northern Ireland. In the election to the convention, the UUUC (which included the DUP) won 53% of the vote. The UUUC opposed a power-sharing government and recommended only a return to majority rule (i.e. unionist rule). As this was unacceptable to nationalists, the convention was dissolved.
The DUP opposed UK membership of the European Economic Community (EEC). In June 1979, in the first election to the European Parliament, Paisley won one of the three Northern Ireland seats. He topped the poll, with 29.8% of the first preference votes.A Chronology of the Conflict – 1979 . Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN). He retained that seat in every European election until 2004, when he was replaced by Jim Allister, who resigned from the DUP in 2007 while retaining his seat.
1980s and 1990s
During 1981, the DUP opposed the then-ongoing talks between British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Taoiseach Charles Haughey. That year, Paisley and other DUP members attempted to create a Protestant loyalist volunteer militia—called the (Ulster) Third Force—which would work alongside the police and army to fight the Irish Republican Army (IRA). They organized large rallies where men were photographed in military formation waving firearms certificates. Paisley declared: "This is a small token of the men who are placed to devastate any attempt by Margaret Thatcher and Charles Haughey to destroy the Union".Henry Patterson, Eric P. Kaufmann. Unionism and Orangeism in Northern Ireland Since 1945. Manchester University Press, 2007. p.198-199 The DUP helped organize a loyalist 'Day of Action' on 23 November 1981, to pressure the British government to take a harder line against the IRA.A Chronology of the Conflict – 1981 , Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN) Paisley addressed a Third Force rally in Newtownards, where thousands of masked and uniformed men marched before him. He declared: "My men are ready to be recruited under the crown to destroy the vermin of the IRA. But if they refuse to recruit them, then we will have no other decision to make but to destroy the IRA ourselves!"Hall, Michael. The Death of the Peace Process?: A survey of community perceptions. Island Publications, 1997. p.10 In December, Paisley claimed that the Third Force had 15,000–20,000 members. James Prior, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, replied that private armies would not be tolerated.
The Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed by the British and Irish governments in November 1985, following months of talks between the two. The Agreement confirmed there would be no change in the status of Northern Ireland without the consent of a majority of its citizens, and proposed the creation of a new power-sharing government. It also gave the Irish government an advisory role on some matters in Northern Ireland. Both the DUP and UUP mounted a major protest campaign against the Agreement, dubbed "Ulster Says No". Both unionist parties resigned their seats in the British House of Commons, suspended district council meetings, and led a campaign of mass civil disobedience. There were strikes and mass protest rallies.Anglo-Irish Agreement – Chronology of Events . Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN). Retrieved 12 September 2014.
On 23 June 1986, DUP politicians occupied the Stormont Parliament Building in protest at the Agreement, while 200 supporters protested outside and clashed with police. The DUP politicians were forcibly removed by police the next day. On 10 July, Paisley and deputy DUP leader Peter Robinson led 4,000 loyalist supporters in a protest in which they 'occupied' the town of Hillsborough. Hillsborough Castle is where the Agreement had been signed. On 7 August, Robinson led hundreds of loyalist supporters in an invasion of the village of Clontibret, in the Republic of Ireland. The loyalists marched up and down the main street, vandalised property, and attacked two Irish police officers (Gardaí) before fleeing back over the border. Robinson was arrested and convicted for unlawful assembly.