The DUP’s ‘tenacious’ leader has never been more important, and never in a weaker positionArlene Foster: out on her own, with history in her handsAfter Arlene Foster became the first woman and the youngest person to lead Northern Ireland and the Democratic Unionist party in 2015, she became the subject of a gentle lampoon: Arlene Foster Holding Things. “There cannot be a border down the Irish Sea, a differential between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK,” she declared last year. Yet Foster, dented, chipped and demonised, is unbowed and in a position to shape history. “In terms of advancing political stability in Northern Ireland, the Foster years have been a failure.”It is hardly all Foster’s fault. But as Northern Ireland swerves from fiasco to fiasco, putting its economy, stability and very existence in doubt, it is Arlene Foster holding the reins.

Source: The Guardian October 04, 2019 14:56 UTC