Edwin Poots’s brief leadership is a sign of deeper problems for the DUP

The party plainly does not know which way to turn, writes John Rentoul

Edwin Poots, on his way out (PA)

I once compiled a Top 10 shortest terms in office that ranged from Louis XIX, who was King of France for less than 20 minutes (abdicated) to Lady Jane Grey, disputed Queen of England for nine days. Edwin Poots outlasted them all as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party for 20 days before he was ejected by a convulsion even more abrupt than the one that brought him to office.

Poots will continue as leader for a few more days, while arrangements are made to choose his successor, but his tenure will be one of the shortest as leader of a party that has MPs in parliament. Only Ukip has had a shorter-serving leader – Diane James lasted 18 days in 2016, when the party had one MP, Douglas Carswell.

Interesting as Poots’s career is for collectors of political trivia, its brevity is more significant as an indicator of the kind of trouble the DUP is in – and not just the DUP but Northern Irish unionism in general.