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Sir Jeffrey Mark Donaldson (born 7 December 1962) is a British politician who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 2021 to 2024 and leader of the DUP in the UK House of Commons from 2019 to 2024. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lagan Valley since 1997. Donaldson was a member of the Orange Order and served in the Ulster Defence Regiment during the Troubles. He was also the campaign manager for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MP Enoch Powell's successful re-election campaigns in 1983 and 1986. He was the UUP candidate for Lagan Valley at the 1997 general election, and was elected as an MP to the House of Commons. He simultaneously represented the same constituency as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the Northern Ireland Assembly from 2003 to 2010. Donaldson is known for his opposition to UUP leader David Trimble's support of the Good Friday Agreement during the Northern Ireland peace process, especially from 1998 to 2003. In 2003, Donaldson resigned from the UUP, becoming a member of the DUP in the following year. Donaldson served in the Northern Ireland Executive from 2008 to 2009 as a Junior Minister for First Minister Peter Robinson. After Nigel Dodds lost his seat at the 2019 general election, Donaldson became the DUP Westminster leader. He was a candidate in the May 2021 Democratic Unionist Party leadership election, losing to Edwin Poots. After Poots resigned the following month, Donaldson was elected unopposed to succeed Poots in the June DUP leadership election; he was confirmed in the post by the party's ruling executive on 30 June. In February 2022, the Northern Ireland Executive collapsed due to DUP protests against the Northern Ireland Protocol. Donaldson was once again elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in the 2022 Assembly election, but he subsequently chose to remain as a Westminster MP, with Emma Little-Pengelly instead taking his seat. Donaldson opposed the Windsor Framework announced by the Sunak government in February 2023 and, for 22 months, Donaldson refused to nominate a deputy First Minister to restore Stormont. In February 2024, the Northern Ireland Executive was restored after a deal was agreed by Donaldson with Sunak's government. In March 2024, he stepped down as leader of the DUP having been charged with rape and historical sexual offences, triggering a leadership election. The party also suspended his membership. Donaldson said that he would strenuously contest the criminal charges. Early life Donaldson was born in Kilkeel, County Down, in Northern Ireland, where he was the oldest of five boys and three girls. He attended Kilkeel High School, where he excelled at debating, then Castlereagh College. At the age of sixteen he joined the Orange Order, and then the Ulster Unionist Party's Young Unionists. Two of Donaldson's cousins were killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army while serving in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC): Sam Donaldson was killed in 1970 and Alex Donaldson, a Chief Inspector, died in a mortar attack on a Newry police station in 1985. Donaldson served with the Kilkeel company of the 3rd Battalion Ulster Defence Regiment (3 UDR), where he was later promoted to corporal. Donaldson worked as an insurance broker in the 1980s. Political career From 1982 to 1984 he was the constituency agent for the Ulster Unionist MP Enoch Powell, managing Powell's successful re-election campaigns in 1983 and 1986. He then worked as personal assistant to the UUP leader James Molyneaux until Molyneaux retired from politics in 1997. Entering politics In October 1985, at the age of 22, following the death of Raymond McCullough, Donaldson was elected with a large majority in a by-election to the Northern Ireland Assembly to represent South Down. In April 1986 Donaldson took part in a unionist demonstration attempting to blockade a conference of the Ulster Teachers' Union held in Newcastle, County Down, in protest at the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Demonstrators blocked teachers' cars and scuffled with the police; at one point protestors broke through police lines and attacked Education Minister Brian Mawhinney's car with flag poles. After further violence arrests were made. Donaldson told reporters afterward "What we're saying to Brian Mawhinney here today is that he may think that he is an Ulsterman but the people of Ulster want no part of a man who has betrayed the people of Ulster." Mawhinney labelled the protestors "thugs". In June that year after Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Tom King ordered the dissolution the Assembly, Donaldson was one of 21 unionist representatives who refused to leave the chamber at Stormont and was eventually physically removed from the building by the RUC. In 1996 he was first-placed candidate on the UUP list for the Northern Ireland Forum elections, virtually guaranteeing him a seat. Donaldson, by this time serving as Assistant Grand Master of the Orange Order, was a prominent figure in the ongoing Drumcree conflict over a yearly loyalist parade in the town of Portadown. He justified unionist demonstrators cutting off Belfast International Airport by saying "in a democracy people have the right to protest and unfortunately some people get inconvenienced". This led to his selection in January 1997 as a candidate for the Westminster Parliament; he was elected at the 1997 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lagan Valley constituency, succeeding James Molyneaux. At that time he was tipped as a potential future leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. Donaldson stated in Richard English's book, Armed Struggle, that because of a "deep sense of injustice that I felt had been perpetrated against my people and specifically against my family", he joined both the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Ulster Unionist Party at the age of 18 to oppose the IRA both militarily and politically. Role in the peace process In 1998, Donaldson was in the Ulster Unionist Party's negotiating team for the Good Friday Agreement. However, on the morning the day the agreement was concluded on 10 April 1998, Donaldson walked out of the delegation. He rejected some of the arrangements, notably the lack of a link between Sinn Féin's admittance to government and IRA decommissioning. Dissent from the UUP Donaldson engineered several party council meetings in protest against David Trimble's policies. The council, however, backed Trimble's leadership, and on 23 June 2003, along with fellow MPs David Burnside and Martin Smyth, Donaldson resigned the Ulster Unionist whip at Westminster. The MPs remained party members and in November 2003 Assembly election Donaldson was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly for the UUP as an MLA for Lagan Valley. Following the success of the rival Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in the same Assembly election of 2003, Donaldson reiterated his call for Trimble's immediate resignation, but the party continued to back Trimble. On.... Discover the Gerald Donaldson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Gerald Donaldson books.