Here is Sam Mc Bride’s exclusive story about Jeffrey Donaldson as a paid adviser by the Ministry of Defence to developing countries on adapting the peace process to their various circumstances. The story is worth wider attention. There’s nothing new about all kinds of locally based players and observers of the peace process spreading the word about our alleged miracle before deeply impressed international audiences. But this one looks different. The MoD for one thing. And Jeffrey Donaldson?
Leaving aside his catastrophic disgrace, I find it astounding that Donaldson was ever regarded by the British government as an objective authority on the peace process, having broken with David Trimble at a key point in the GFA negotiations and having defected to the DUP later.
Was this arrangement moral or even legal? Was nobody in the MoD aware of his behaviour on other parliamentary jaunts like alleged projectile vomiting before the mayor of Beijing?
One plausible suspicion not going unmissed in Northern Ireland already is a conflict of interest amounting perhaps to suborning or political corruption. Donaldson seemed to switch suddenly from being a strong opponent post Brexit of an Irish Sea border to accepting the terms what became the Windsor Framework. He had pulled the DUP out of the Assembly because of it and brought them in again claiming the Framework solved all the problems. I happen to agree with his second course. The first should never have happened. But did his position change because of UK Government patronage?
Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London
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