A SENIOR DUP member reportedly wore a wire to leak insider details of a meeting where the party’s executive agreed to allow powersharing to return in Northern Ireland.
Posts by loyalist Jamie Bryson on Twitter/X claimed to give an insider account of the meeting where leader Jeffrey Donaldson gave a speech detailing negotiations made with the UK Government.
Bryson claimed the meeting at the party’s HQ in Dundela, east Belfast, descended into “mayhem” with Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers being accused of being behind the leak after his tweets were raised in the room.
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Donaldson has refuted the content of the posts and said they are not accurate, but Bryson has now claimed that a “senior” DUP member was his mole inside the meeting.
He told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme: "Senior people in the DUP felt so exercised about this and felt that this was such a defining moment, that they took the step that they did.
“Obviously I wasn't in the room, the venue clearly wasn't bugged by some hidden device so there was clearly senior people – plural – within the DUP who felt so strongly about this that they took this extraordinary, unprecedented step."
During the five-hour meeting on Monday night, Bryson claimed that Donaldson was “complaining about leaks” and that the meeting was halted due to “anger” over the fact it was being live tweeted.
“DUP meeting descends into mayhem,” Bryson wrote, in a post that has been viewed over 478,000 times.
“JD [Donaldson] saying texts being sent to Jamie Bryson who is giving a blow by blow account to the meeting.”
He added: “MAYHEM in party Exec meeting. One DUP delegate accuses PSNI officers of being the leak.”
Dyson also claimed that members were told to turn their mobile phones off and there was “fury and mayhem” in the room.
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What deal did the DUP agree to?
Stormont could be back up and running within days after Donaldson secured the backing of his party’s executive through a deal with the UK over the post-Brexit Irish Sea border.
It means that all post-Brexit checks on goods moving into Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK will be removed.
It comes after two years of the party refusing to allow the devolved government in Northern Ireland to resume.
The wrangling over the deal was mostly between the DUP and the UK, but removing all checks on custom paperwork will require the EU to agree.
The arrangements that govern trade in the Irish Sea – the Northern Ireland Protocol and Windsor framework – were jointly agreed between London and Brussels.
Donaldson (above) insisted that the DUP’s return to powersharing is dependent on the UK Government implementing several measures and assurance regarding trade.
The UK Government is expected to publish details of the agreement on Wednesday, and introduce two statutory instruments to give legislative effect to agreements made on trade and sovereignty.
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What led to the Stormont impasse?
The DUP has been using a veto power to block the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland from reconvening after the 2022 elections. The party have claimed this is in protest at the post-Brexit arrangements creating trade barriers between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
However, the 2022 elections also saw Sinn Fein return as the largest party for the first time, which should have led to group leader Michelle O’Neill (below) being designated first minister.
A DUP member will be appointed as deputy minister when the parliament reconvenes, a position with equal power but less prestige.
Donaldson admitted that the party had not achieved all it had hoped from the negotiations with the UK.
“For the movement of goods within the United Kingdom, the protocol of course imposed severe restrictions on the movement of those goods – these new arrangements remove those restrictions,” Donaldson told BBC Radio Ulster.
“Zero checks, zero customs paperwork on goods moving within the United Kingdom. That takes away the border within the UK between Northern Ireland and Great Britain and that is something that’s very important.
“Now, are these proposals perfect? Have we achieved everything that we wanted to achieve?
“No, we haven’t. I will be honest with people about what we’ve been able to deliver, the substantive change.”
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