Exclusive interview: Peter Robinson
Peter Robinson has defended his decision not to stand down as DUP leader and first minister after losing his Westminster seat, telling UTV he will keep on doing the job “I’ve been elected to do”.
On Monday, DUP MLAs said they stood four-square behind their leader despite his shock General Election defeat to the Alliance’s Naomi Long in East Belfast.
“I am First Minister and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party and until the party and I feel that it’s appropriate for me to change, so it shall remain,” Peter Robinson told UTV’s Political Editor Ken Reid.
“There’s a job to be done and we still have to consolidate and move forward towards prosperity.”
‘Punchbag’
Mr Robinson said he understood the “misgivings” of ordinary voters in east Belfast, insisting the election “came too soon” for him following a series of pre-campaign revelations.
“I recognise that there were issues if I was an ordinary voter on the street and had listened relentlessly to the press attacks on me, I could understand them having misgivings and that was my concern – that I wasn’t going to have the opportunity of clearing my name before I would go before the electorate.”
After the election, DUP MP Sammy Wilson blamed the media for the leader’s downfall.
“I had a period last January when it would have been ideal from my point of view to walk away. That would have been the most comfortable thing, since then I’ve been a punch bag for all the press allegations as they tried to sell their newspapers and make their programmes important,” Mr Robinson said.
The DUP leader said he will not be hanging on to office, but denied the ‘Peter Robinson brand’ had been damaging to the party.
“Let me be very clear – whatever is best for Northern Ireland and the Democratic Unionist Party is my top priority,” Mr Robinson said.
“Nothing that I have done has damaged my colleagues, they all got returned and as far as I am concerned the only difficulty has been that I haven’t had sufficient time for the inquiries to clear me”.
“If Peter Robinson walking into the sunset is best for Northern Ireland and for the Democratic Unionist Party, then that’s what I would do. But we will not allow the press to make that judgement for us – we’ll make those judgements ourselves.”
Mr Robinson branded Thursday’s election “remarkably good” for the party.
“We have seen off our two unionist opponents – the TUV have been decimated, they’re on the floor … The Ulster Unionist Party’s strategy has been rejected by the electorate of Northern Ireland.
“So in the context of the party politics within unionism, there’s been a very strong endorsement of the policy, the strategy, the direction of the DUP and I’m comforted by that.”
Mr Robinson had held his East Belfast constituency seat for 31 years.
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