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full screenJeffrey Donaldson, now former leader of the Northern Irish Unionist Party DUP. Archive image. Photo: Peter Morrison/AP/TT
Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the Northern Ireland Unionist Party DUP, is resigning with immediate effect. The reason is that he has been prosecuted for years-old crimes “of a sexual nature”, the party states in a written statement.
Donaldson has been one of Northern Ireland’s most powerful politicians for decades and opposed the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended a long and bloody conflict. Earlier this year, he was one of the key figures behind the deal with the government in London and the political opponents in Sinn Féin that allowed Northern Ireland to get a government after two years of political vacuum.
Donaldson does not sit in parliament or government in Northern Ireland, but in the House of Commons in London. He has not announced whether he also intends to leave that seat and, if so, force new elections in the district he has represented for over a quarter of a century.