Talk:Democratic Unionist Party

Controversies
Why is there no mention of Scandals in the Controversies section, such as Cash for Ash? 2A02:C7E:2D5F:9500:2C76:8632:707A:3737 (talk) 16:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Social conservatism
I it needed in the infobox, as it already has national conservatism in it. I'd call for British nationalism to be removed, but as it's an article, instead of nationalism in general, I won't for its removal. ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 16:39, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

2024 DUP leadership election
There was a Wikipedia page for the 2024 DUP leadership election but it seems like it has been deleted. Does anyone here know why? Tagging as I see you moved the page "2024 Democratic Unionist Party leadership election" to redirect to this page. Helper201 (talk) 18:15, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * - Wish I could help but I do not know why it was originally deleted. Moondragon21 (talk) 20:03, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * , no worries. Thanks for the reply. Helper201 (talk) 19:08, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Associations with loyalist paramilitaries
For discussion of an edit to the paragraph "Associations with loyalist paramilitaries". The edit was made in April 2024 by the editor Athousandcuts2005.

The content of the edit is as follows: "Former DUP member Jim Allister represented loyalist Clifford McKeown in court in 2003.[195] McKeown, who was already serving 12 years for gun possession, was ultimately found guilty of the murder of Catholic taxi driver Michael McGoldrick in 1996, said to have been done as a "birthday present" for Billy Wright.[195] Allister said that McKeown would be appealing against the conviction.[195] Allister rejoined the DUP in 2004, and served as an MEP for the party from 2004 to 2007, before leaving to form the Traditional Unionist Voice, a party opposed to the St Andrews Agreement of 2006. "

Here is the newspaper source cited in the edit.

If Athousandcuts2005 (or anyone else) has any opinion on the following then I'd be happy to discuss.

I have several reservations regarding the inclusion of this edit in the article.

The newspaper source cited does not mention the Democratic Unionist Party at all. The source is, in fact, a tabloid newspaper article about a legal trial regarding a murder in which a Loyalist terrorist called Clifford McKeown was the defendant. The trial took place in 2003, the murder in 1996.

However, the edit contrives to associate the DUP with this legal case by mention of the Northern Irish unionist politician Jim Allister who, in his professional life, was a barrister at law and acted as defence lawyer for Clifford Mckeown at this trial in 2003. At the time of the trial, Mr Allister was not a member of the DUP. In fact, I believe that in 2003 he wasn't a member of any political party. The edit describes him as a "former DUP member" and then tells us that he rejoined the DUP in 2004, before proceeding to give some further information on Mr Allister's political career. Note that the source mentions only that Jim Allister was Clifford McKeown's legal representative but does not mention the Democratic Unionist Party nor Mr Allister's prior or later membership of it.

Wikipedia has some core guidelines; one of which is that editors should "cite sources focused on the topic at hand, where possible".

The "topic at hand" here is the Democratic Unionist Party but the cited source does not mention the Democratic Unionist Party.

Another core guideline is that editors should not engage in Coatracking. "A coatrack article is a Wikipedia article that gets away from its nominal subject, and instead gives more attention to one or more connected but tangential subjects."

In this case, I would say that the "nominal subject" of the article is the Democratic Unionist Party but the edit concerns "tangential subjects" Clifford Mckeown and Jim Allister (in fact, editor Athousandcuts2005 added a similar edit to the Wikipedia article on Jim Allister).

Another core guideline is that edits should contain No Original Research "To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article and directly support the material being presented."

The source does indeed "support the material presented" in the edit but it isn't "directly related to the topic of the article".

In conclusion, if a source can be provided which explicitly links the Democratic Unionist Party to the trial of Clifford McKeown then there may be a case for including that trial in the "Associations with loyalist paramilitaries" paragraph of this Wikipedia article. If no such source can be provided then there is no reason to include mention of either Clifford McKeown or Jim Allister in that paragraph. BrownBowler (talk) 14:12, 19 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Replying to my own post: in the absence of any discussion, I've removed the edit in its entirety for the reasons stated above. BrownBowler (talk) 08:19, 29 May 2024 (UTC)