Edwin Poots was born on 27 April 1965 and is a British politician in Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party from May to June 2021.
29 Facts About Edwin Poots
2.
Edwin Poots was first elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly in 1998.
3.
Edwin Poots left office after Peter Robinson became First Minister in 2008.
4.
In 2009, Edwin Poots returned to the Executive as Minister of the Environment, before being promoted to Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in 2011.
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Edwin Poots was educated at the Wallace High School, Lisburn, and then studied at Greenmount Agricultural College.
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Edwin Poots is a farmer and is married with four children.
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Edwin Poots's father, Charles Poots, was a DUP politician, having stood in the 1969 Northern Ireland general election for the Protestant Unionist Party.
8.
One of Edwin Poot's sons, Luke Poots, was a councillor with Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council, but he did not seek reelection in the 2019 Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council election.
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Edwin Poots served as a local government councillor on Lisburn City Council before being elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in the 1998 election.
10.
Edwin Poots was made Deputy Mayor of Lisburn on 23 June 2008.
11.
On 1 July 2009, Edwin Poots was returned to the Executive as Minister of the Environment, in charge of the Department of the Environment.
12.
In June 2011, Edwin Poots fired his legal shotgun twice from his upstairs window as a warning to intruders on his property in Lisburn, who then fled.
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Edwin Poots's family called the police and an investigation began.
14.
On 23 September 2014, Edwin Poots was replaced by Jim Wells as Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.
15.
Gordon Lyons served as the acting Agriculture Minister from 2 February to 8 March 2021 after Edwin Poots stood down temporarily for health reasons.
16.
On 29 April 2021, Edwin Poots announced his candidacy in the party leadership election in May to succeed Arlene Foster as DUP leader, the day after Foster declared she would be resigning.
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Edwin Poots was announced as leader of the DUP on 14 May 2021, beating Sir Jeffrey Donaldson by 19 votes to 17.
18.
Edwin Poots admitted party members are "bruised" but denied claims of intimidation.
19.
The First Minister had always been the leader of the largest party, but Edwin Poots said he did not want to be First Minister if he became DUP leader.
20.
However, Edwin Poots nominated Givan as First Minister and Sinn Fein re-nominated Michelle O'Neill as deputy First Minister, restoring the Northern Ireland Executive.
21.
Edwin Poots resigned shortly after, announcing that he had requested a new leadership contest but that he would stay in post until a successor was elected.
22.
In January 2022, Edwin Poots unsuccessfully sought to switch constituencies for Northern Ireland Assembly elections.
23.
On 21 December 2021, Loyalist activist Jamie Bryson served a pre-action letter on Edwin Poots, stating an intention to commence judicial review proceedings if he did not declare an intent to refer decisions on the checks and inspections to his Executive colleagues for approval.
24.
On 25 January 2022, Edwin Poots confirmed his intention to ask the Executive for retrospective approval for carrying out checks from the date the protocol came into effect in January 2021 and ongoing permission to continue doing them.
25.
Edwin Poots is a young earth creationist, rejecting the Big Bang theory and theory of evolution.
26.
Young earth creationism is accepted by the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, of which Edwin Poots is a member, and other conservative evangelicals in Northern Ireland.
27.
In January 2016, Edwin Poots was criticised by gender equality advocates, political commentators and other politicians for saying that the newly elected First Minister, Arlene Foster's, most important job was as a "wife, mother and daughter".
28.
On 17 June 2021, only 21 days into his tenure as DUP leader, Edwin Poots was forced to resign following his decision to nominate Paul Givan as First Minister.
29.
In December 2020, it was reported that while recovering from surgery, Edwin Poots had tested positive for COVID-19, the first Executive minister to do so.