Member's statement: DUP Conference

Member's statement by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 21 September 2026.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

21 September 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

DUP Conference

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5741766

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I do not normally pay all that much attention to the DUP conference. I offer my condolences to my colleagues on the opposite Benches, and I hope that they had an enjoyable and productive weekend. This weekend, however, I could not help but notice some of what was emerging from the DUP conference. Any political party of any stripe is entitled to and should meet to discuss policy, priorities and future plans. We all do that, and my party did it the weekend before last. It is clear that the DUP had a very particular agenda around unionist unity — it is up to version 6.0 or 7.0 — that it is trying to push. The thing that I want to talk about and which concerns me, however, was not necessarily any DUP politician — although I agreed with virtually none of what they said, they are entitled to meet — but the presence of a Mr Danny Kruger from Reform UK, who was there on Friday night as the keynote speaker. I would have thought that, as many people have said, having sadly been run over by many buses driven by members of the British hard right and having exhausted lots of party funds on Sudocrem for having been burned so many times by political movements led by the British hard right, the DUP would have thought better, but I am afraid not. There is a serious point here. I am afraid to say that I spent a few minutes reading Mr Kruger's remarks to the DUP conference on Friday night, in which he announced a particular policy for a Reform UK Government. Mr Frew is nodding, so I presume that they would like to see a Reform UK Government; certainly, the DUP invited that man along to speak. Danny Kruger said that, under a Farage-led UK Government, Reform would insist on travel authorisation for any non-UK or Irish national arriving in Dublin Airport and travelling North.

Let us be clear: that is a catastrophic, grotesquely stupid and utterly impractical policy for a number of reasons. First, it would, of course, be a profound violation of the settlement that we have on this island. However, in practical terms, as well as being utterly impossible, it would devastate our economy, including our tourism economy. Where do 70% of the people who come to Northern Ireland arrive? Dublin Airport. Once again, the geniuses in the DUP are inviting not a hard border on the island of Ireland, which is a fantasy of parts of unionism, but a hard border, which I do not want to see, between Britain and Ireland: another sea border. It would be the worst kind of sea border and one that I, who have spent most of my adult life in Britain and care deeply about those ties, do not want to see, and nor does my party. The DUP, by flirting once again with the English hard right, is bringing that on itself and the rest of us. Since Reform and the DUP seem to be really into nostalgia — old-fashioned, English/British-style nostalgia — let me offer a bit of pop culture nostalgia to colleagues in the DUP once again, since they are going down the same road again. Lads, don't be plonkers all your lives. Don't be plonkers all your lives.

556 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:23 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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