Does the DUP really believe it can obstruct Brexit, Stormont and Westminster indefinitely?

After the fuss over DUP leader Arlene Foster’s reference to a “blood red” line, comparatively little fuss has been made about her party threatening “guerrilla war”.

The phrase was used by an unnamed DUP source in an interview last weekend and raised eyebrows sufficiently for the UUP to tell Foster to rein in this “reckless language”.

The DUP turns out to have a tragically laddish back office culture. The same source, referring to the Conservatives, said: “We are going to squeeze their balls until their ears bleed”.

It was the Tories all this language was aimed at. The DUP believes any sea border arrangement in a backstop would become permanent. If it cannot block a Withdrawal Agreement involving such an arrangement it is planning to fight on to prevent its implementation.

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The fighting would be on two fronts. In Northern Ireland, the source claimed the DUP would refuse to re-enter Stormont even if that meant a permanent collapse of devolution.

Stormont is still officially necessary to implement the backstop. Many of the regulatory powers required for single market alignment are devolved and there is a role for Northern Ministers in the backstop’s UK-EU implementation body, agreed at negotiators’ level.

In addition, the British government promised any regulatory divergence across the Irish Sea would have to be approved by the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, and this was included in last December’s EU-UK joint report, even if Brussels has since declined to acknowledge it.

Sea border

The second front was explained this Monday by DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds. Speaking to the BBC, he said any sea border would cause his party to cancel its confidence and supply deal with the Tories and withhold support for most domestic legislation, including budgets. However, the DUP would not oppose the government on votes of confidence, to avoid triggering an election and placing Labour's Jeremy Corbyn in Number 10.

The Conservatives would be trapped in a living death, perhaps able to implement the backstop via Westminster with Labour co-operation but unable to do much else. Because of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act this limbo could stagger on until 2022, while the DUP schemed to replace May with someone more amenable. It is often said the DUP is too scared of Corbyn to risk bringing down the government, described as its nuclear option. What Dodds has identified is a tactical nuclear option.

However, under this scenario, the Tories would be free and motivated to respond with equal aggression. Their obvious option is enacting Sinn Féin’s demands on the Stormont deadlock – same-sex marriage, abortion reform and an Irish language Act.

The DUP has always aspired to introduce voluntary coalition and has suggested it as the answer to every Stormont deadlock, until now

While this would infuriate the DUP, it is unlikely to outweigh a sea border the party views as dividing the union.

The ultimate response would be restoring Stormont over the DUP’s head – and deliciously, the firmest way to do that has been a long-term DUP demand.

Replacing mandatory coalition with voluntary coalition would allow the four other main parties at Stormont to form an Executive representing, on current numbers, two-thirds of Assembly members and 62 per cent of the electorate.

Powersharing

There would still need to be compulsory powersharing for nationalist buy-in but the UUP remains large enough to fill the unionist role, providing it could face down DUP accusations of selling out.

UUP leader Robin Swann called for voluntary coalition in his annual conference speech last October, although he was presumably not anticipating a nationalist-majority coalition.

However, the DUP is most closely associated with this proposal. It has always aspired to introduce voluntary coalition and has suggested it as the answer to every Stormont deadlock, until now.

After Sinn Féin walked out of the Executive in January 2017, the DUP called again for voluntary coalition. In subsequent talks to restore the Executive, its main demand was a rule change to ensure either of the big two parties walking out would not cause another collapse.

The DUP has only fallen silent on this subject since it abandoned a restoration deal with Sinn Féin this February, and became the party taking everyone’s ball away.

In 2014, during a three-year crisis caused by Sinn Féin's refusal to implement welfare reform, Foster's predecessor Peter Robinson said Stormont was no longer fit for purpose and called for a "St Andrews 2" to introduce voluntary coalition, in reference to the 2006 talks that made major changes to the Belfast Agreement.

At St Andrews, the British and Irish governments ganged up on the DUP to bounce it into an Executive. A repeat today might see both governments edge the DUP out, hoisted by its own petard.

There must be serious concerns as to whether Northern Ireland could sustain this much high drama without actual blood on the streets. But nuclear options only have to be credible to be effective.

Does the DUP really believe it can obstruct Brexit, Stormont and Westminster indefinitely without anyone else putting the squeeze on it?