Northern Irish First Minister Arlene Foster resigns

By Karim El-Bar

LONDON (AA) – Arlene Foster, first minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, resigned on Wednesday following calls for a new leadership contest within her party, local media reported.

“It is important to give space over the next few weeks for the Party Officers to make arrangements for the election of a new leader,” Foster said in a statement.

“It has been the privilege of my life to serve the people of Northern Ireland as their First Minister,” Foster said, adding: “I first entered the Assembly in 2003 and undoubtedly the journey of the last eighteen years has been memorable.”

“As I prepare to depart the political stage it is my view that if Northern Ireland is to prosper then it will only do so built on the foundations of successful and durable devolution. That will require continued hard work and real determination and courage on all sides,” she said.

After listing her achievement in office, she turned to the issue that have come to define Northern Irish politics of late: “The Protocol being foisted upon Northern Ireland against the will of unionists has served to destabilise Northern Ireland in more recent times.”

“There are people in Northern Ireland with a British identity, others are Irish, others are Northern Irish, others are a mixture of all three and some are new and emerging. We must all learn to be generous to each other, live together and share this wonderful country,” Foster said, adding: “The future of unionism and Northern Ireland will not be found in division, it will only be found in sharing this place we all are privileged to call home.”

Foster, 50, became party leader in December 2015. She will step down as leader of the DUP on May 28, and first minister at the end of June. She is the first woman and youngest person to hold both positions.

Earlier, around 75% of her party’s Northern Ireland Assembly members as well as several of her party’s MPs in the national Westminster parliament signed a letter calling for a new leadership election. Furthermore, eight of the DUP’s 18 constituency associations submitted letter of concerns over how the leadership was handling key issues.

The key issue was, and is, Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol which placed a border in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

- The Troubles

The UK suffered a 30-year low-intensity conflict both in Northern Ireland and the wider UK, called the Troubles. This conflict pitted Northern Irish republican nationalists, who wanted unification with the Republic of Ireland, against Northern Irish unionists, who wanted to remain in the UK.

Thousands died and tens of thousands were injured across Northern Ireland, the wider UK, and the Republic of Ireland. The conflict came to an end with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

One of the provisions of the agreement was the elimination of the hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. There were fears on both sides of the border that a return to checks on the border could mean a return to political violence.

The Brexit agreement therefore sought to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland to prevent republican nationalist anger, but the solution – known as the Northern Ireland protocol – placed a border in the Irish Sea instead, which has provoked unionist anger.

This anger played a large role in the recent riots that shook Northern Ireland, which were carried out in mainly unionist areas. The union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the core of Northern Irish unionist identity.

The DUP backed Brexit but opposed the Northern Ireland protocol.

Several reports also mentioned dissatisfaction at a local level with her decision to abstain on a vote on a motion in the Northern Irish Assembly which called for a ban on gay conversion therapy without exemptions for religious practices. The DUP is deeply socially conservative, and unionism more generally is strongly associated with Protestantism.

With Brexit’s Northern Ireland protocol and liberalizing social attitudes buffeting both the region and her unionist conservative party, Foster’s resignation adds instability to an already unstable situation in Northern Ireland in its centenary year.