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A former special adviser to Arlene Foster has accused Edwin Poots of making “monumental mistakes” in the 24 hours before his resignation.
Mr Poots resigned after just three weeks as leader of the DUP, amid party anger at a UK government pledge to grant Sinn Féin a key concession on Irish language laws.
Emma Little Pengelly, a former DUP MP and advisor to Mr Poots’ predecessor Arlene Foster, said he had failed to demonstrate the necessary leadership.
She told BBC NI’s The View: “Edwin was clearly very, very keen to take the leadership, there were many in the party unhappy about the way that it was done.
“It was then over to him then to demonstrate why he felt it was necessary.
“What were the changes that he felt needed to happen?
“However, over the course of the last two weeks we haven’t seen that — for example in terms of North South relations, the protocol and of course what has happened over the last 24 hours.”
She added: “What has happened over the last 24 hours, last night and into today seem to have been monumental mistakes”.
Another former adviser to Ms Foster, Lee Reynolds, said Mr Poots should have known that the decision of the UK government to legislate on the Irish language would not be acceptable to the DUP.
He told BBC Newsnight: “When I heard about it last night, I’m sitting here going ‘This isn’t going to fly’.
“There is no point getting people into a room agreeing something that any man on the street could have told you would be dead on arrival.”
He said Mr Poots did not possess the “political goodwill” to survive the deal.
“The simple reality is that there are always compromises in any agreement. And you need political capital and you need political goodwill to deliver on those” he said.
“That is just a central reality to Northern Ireland politics in 2021.
“The protocol and its impacts have made the well of political goodwill empty. It has cleaned out the unionist bank account of capital to spend on this, and that is a core problem.”
New leader
Mr Poots quit as DUP leader on Thursday night after losing the support of his party less than five weeks after he was elected to replace Arlene Foster.
In a statement Mr Poots said he had asked the party chairman “to commence an electoral process within the party to allow for a new leader of the Democratic Unionist Party to be elected”.
“The party has asked me to remain in post until my successor is elected,” he said. “This has been a difficult period for the party and the country, and I have conveyed to the chairman my determination to do everything I can to ensure both unionism and Northern Ireland is able to move forward to a stronger place.”
It is not clear what the consequences may be for Paul Givan, his close ally who he nominated as Northern Ireland’s First Minister on Thursday afternoon.
Mr Poots was narrowly elected as DUP leader on May 14th following the party’s first ever leadership election. He was the shortest-serving DUP leader ever, officially lasting only 21 days in office.
Earlier he faced an internal revolt from his party over the timing of his nomination of Mr Givan as the North’s First Minister.
In the early hours of Thursday, Northern Secretary Brandon Lewis brokered a compromise deal to break the deadlock over nominations to the posts of First and Deputy First Minister. A failure to fill the posts by Monday could have brought down the North’s Assembly.
The UK government agreed to step in and legislate for Irish language and other cultural provisions agreed in the 2020 New Decade, New Approach deal in October if Stormont failed to do so by then, satisfying demands from Sinn Féin and four other Northern parties.
Sinn Féin announced it would proceed with the nomination of a the Deputy First Minister, and Mr Poots on Thursday morning said he intended to nominate Mr Givan “at the earliest opportunity”.
However, he faced an internal revolt from peers and seven out of the party’s eight MPs, who wrote to him expressing their concern. They asked him to wait and “explain the basis of your agreement” to nominate a First Minister before taking any further steps.
At a bruising meeting held shortly afterwards, at least 20 of the party’s Assembly members voted against the nomination going ahead. It is understood Mr Poots and Mr Givan were not present for the vote as they had already left to go to the Assembly chamber for the nomination process.
Mr Givan was due to attend a meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council in Armagh today, in his first official engagement in the role, but the gathering was last night cancelled.
“Given political developments in Northern Ireland today, tomorrow’s NSMC Plenary meeting has been postponed at the request of the Northern side,” the Government said in a statement. - Additional reporting PA