Democratic Unionist Party

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), political party based in Northern Ireland, established in Belfast by the Reverend Ian Paisley and fellow unionist Desmond Boal in 1971, and committed to the maintenance of the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The DUP also seeks to maintain the partition between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The DUP was founded during a time of political and social crisis. During the late 1960s there was a rise in Roman Catholic civil rights agitation, and the establishment of a number of groups protesting against religious and political discrimination in Northern Ireland. The dominant Loyalist political party, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), found itself in disarray, unable to agree on how to tackle mounting disorder. Paisley and Boal, who had been critical of the UUP, founded the DUP in order to pursue an unambiguous unionist position that would not consider concessions to the province’s Catholic republicans (nationalists), who sought Northern Ireland’s integration with Ireland.

The DUP rejected direct rule, which abolished the parliament at Stormont in 1972. Led by Paisley, eight DUP members were elected to the power-sharing Assembly in June 1973. They walked out in January 1974 and, together with a number of other unionists, they formed the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC), which was instrumental in the demise of the Assembly. The DUP secured 12 of the 78 seats in elections to the Constitutional Convention in 1975. With other UUUC members, the DUP rejected power sharing, direct rule, and interference from Great Britain. The Convention was dissolved in 1976. After winning 21 of the 78 seats in the Assembly election of 1982, the DUP helped to bring it down in 1986.

DUP members denounced both the initiative of Margaret Thatcher and Charles Haughey in 1980, and the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) of 1985. The DUP responded to the AIA by boycotting Westminster and, with support from the UUP, conducting a campaign of civil disobedience. The DUP also opposed the Downing Street Declaration of 1993, arguing that it conceded too much power to Dublin and the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The DUP continues to argue that Westminster has relinquished its commitment to the union and to Northern Irish Loyalists, and strongly opposed the 1998 Northern Ireland peace accord (known as the Good Friday Agreement). Despite a DUP-led campaign against the proposal, the accord was accepted by large majorities in Northern Ireland and Ireland in May 1998. All parties except the DUP signed the agreement.

However, the DUP entered the new Northern Ireland Assembly, winning 20 seats in the June 1998 elections. Denouncing the policies of the First Minister David Trimble, the party refused initially to nominate ministers. When a power-sharing executive was finally set up in December 1999, the DUP decided to nominate its two ministers, but said it would refuse to deal with the Sinn Fein members of the executive. Following a failure to reach agreement on the issue of weapons decommissioning in February 2000, the DUP called for the suspension of other aspects of the Good Friday Agreement such as the early release of prisoners. However, the party’s ministers rejoined the executive of the Northern Ireland Assembly when the assembly was restored in June. The DUP was given a boost in September when it took a seat from the UUP in a by-election, enabling the DUP to put more pressure on the peace process. In February 2001 the DUP called for the suspension of Sinn Fein ministers from the executive while the IRA continued to hold arms.

In the 2001 general election the DUP exploited unionist dissatisfaction with both the Good Friday Agreement and the lack of progress on weapons decommissioning, and took three seats from the UUP (giving the DUP a total of five seats). This made the DUP the second-largest political force in Northern Ireland. In late 2002, while sectarian violence showed little sign of subsiding, the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended once again amid allegations of continuing IRA involvement in paramilitary activity, further throwing the peace process into doubt.

The elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly in November 2003 (held even though the body remained suspended) marked a significant victory for the DUP. The party overtook the UUP as the largest unionist party in the assembly with 30 seats, 3 more than the UUP. This success was underscored in January 2004 when the defection of three UUP assembly members made the DUP the largest party from Northern Ireland in the British Parliament. In the 2005 general election the DUP gained 4 seats in Parliament, giving it a total of 9 seats and confirming its status as the leading unionist party.

In July 2005 the IRA formally declared an end to its armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland. In September an independent commission announced that the IRA had completed the process of decommissioning its weapons. In early 2007 Sinn Fein agreed it would begin cooperating with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which is predominantly Protestant, to maintain law and order. In addition, an official report found the IRA to be in full compliance with its 2005 decision to renounce violence.

Voters went to the polls in March 2007 to elect a new Northern Ireland Assembly. The DUP again emerged as the leading party, winning 36 seats with 30 percent of the vote. Sinn Fein won 28 seats, the UUP won 18, and the SDLP won 16. Britain announced a March 26 deadline for the parties to begin power sharing, or else the assembly would again be suspended. On that date DUP leader Paisley and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams held their first-ever face-to-face meeting and agreed to forge a joint platform for government. The deadline for putting in place a power-sharing government, thereby ending the direct rule of Britain, was extended to May.