The leader of the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Jeffrey Donaldson, has resigned after his indictment in an old case, his party announced on Friday March 29 in a press release. It is a matter of a sexual nature, according to British media.
The party leadership “received a letter from MP Jeffrey Donaldson confirming that he has been indicted on old charges and announcing that he is stepping down as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party with immediate effect,” the DUP said.
Earlier on Friday, Northern Irish police announced that the 61-year-old had been charged with long-standing sexual offences. He is due to appear in court in Newry on April 24, along with a 57-year-old woman, charged with aiding and abetting. Jeffrey Donaldson has deleted all his social media accounts.
A Member of Parliament in Westminster since 1997, leader of the DUP since June 2021, Mr. Donaldson was considered a moderate figure within the unionist movement, committed to maintaining Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom.
Seeing post-Brexit trade arrangements as a threat to the Irish province, the DUP boycotted for two years the Northern Irish institutions, resulting from the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, signed after three decades of bloody conflict around British rule over this part of the island.
The boycott ended last February and allowed Michelle O’Neill (Sinn Fein) to become the first head of the Northern Irish government to be in favor of the unification of Ireland, almost two years after the Party’s victory. republican, formerly the political showcase of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
