51 Facts About Jeffrey Donaldson

Sir Jeffrey Mark Donaldson was born on 7 December 1962 and is a Northern Irish former politician, who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party from 2021 to 2024 and leader of the DUP in the UK House of Commons from 2019 to 2024.

Jeffrey Donaldson was the Member of Parliament for Lagan Valley from 1997 to 2024.

Jeffrey Donaldson was the campaign manager for the Ulster Unionist Party MP Enoch Powell's successful re-election campaigns in 1983 and 1986.

Jeffrey Donaldson was the UUP candidate for Lagan Valley at the 1997 general election, and was elected as an MP to the House of Commons.

Jeffrey Donaldson simultaneously represented the same constituency as a Member of the Legislative Assembly in the Northern Ireland Assembly from 2003 to 2010.

Jeffrey 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, Jeffrey Donaldson resigned from the UUP, becoming a member of the DUP in the following year.

Jeffrey Donaldson served in the Northern Ireland Executive from 2008 to 2009 as a Junior Minister for First Minister Peter Robinson.

Jeffrey Donaldson was a candidate in the May 2021 DUP leadership election, losing to Edwin Poots.

Jeffrey Donaldson was 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.

Jeffrey Donaldson opposed the Windsor Framework announced by the Sunak government in February 2023 and, for 22 months, Jeffrey Donaldson refused to nominate a deputy First Minister to restore Stormont.

Jeffrey Donaldson said that he would strenuously contest the criminal charges.

In May 2024, Jeffrey Donaldson's solicitor confirmed that he was not intending to stand for re-election at the 2024 general election.

Jeffrey Donaldson was born in Kilkeel, County Down, Northern Ireland, and was the oldest of five boys and three girls.

Jeffrey Donaldson attended Kilkeel High School, where he excelled at debating, then Castlereagh College.

Jeffrey Donaldson served with the Kilkeel company of the 3rd Battalion UDR, and was promoted to corporal.

Jeffrey Donaldson then worked as personal assistant to the UUP leader James Molyneaux until Molyneaux retired from politics in 1997.

In October 1985, at the age of 22, following the death of Raymond McCullough, Jeffrey Donaldson was elected with a large majority in a by-election to the Northern Ireland Assembly to represent South Down.

Jeffrey Donaldson, by that 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.

Jeffrey Donaldson stated in Richard English's book, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA, 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 UDR and the UUP at the age of 18 to oppose the IRA both militarily and politically.

In 1998, Jeffrey Donaldson was in the UUP's negotiating team for the Good Friday Agreement.

However, on the morning the day the agreement was concluded on 10 April 1998, Jeffrey Donaldson walked out of the delegation.

Jeffrey Donaldson rejected some of the arrangements, notably the lack of a link between Sinn Fein's admittance to government and IRA decommissioning.

Privately Jeffrey Donaldson came close to meeting a senior republican leader and kept alive contacts with the republican movement through third parties.

Jeffrey Donaldson engineered several party council meetings in protest against David Trimble's policies.

The council backed Trimble's leadership, and on 23 June 2003, along with fellow MPs David Burnside and Martin Smyth, Jeffrey Donaldson resigned the Ulster Unionist whip at Westminster.

The MPs remained party members and in November 2003 Assembly election Jeffrey Donaldson was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly for the UUP as an MLA for Lagan Valley.

Jeffrey Donaldson was returned to the House of Commons in the 2005 UK general election and, in 2007, he was appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, entitling him to the honorific style of The Right Honourable.

In total, Jeffrey Donaldson submitted claim forms, including receipts, for 68 pay-to-view movies.

The newspaper claimed "hotel sources confirmed that films he put on his expenses during 2004 and 2005 were in the highest price category offered to guests, covering the latest blockbusters and adult movies", although no evidence was offered and Jeffrey Donaldson issued an official statement denying watching any content of an adult or pornographic nature.

Jeffrey Donaldson was appointed to government by First Minister Peter Robinson, and held the position of Junior Minister in the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister from 2008 to 2009.

Jeffrey Donaldson was a member of the Public Bill Committee for the Defence Reform Act 2014.

On 3 May 2021, exactly 100 years after Northern Ireland was effectively established, Jeffrey Donaldson declared his candidacy for the leadership of the DUP to replace Arlene Foster.

Jeffrey Donaldson lost the subsequent leadership election to Edwin Poots MLA, by 19 votes to 17.

In July 2021, Jeffrey Donaldson said in a UTV interview that he intended to resign his seat as a Westminster MP and become Northern Ireland First Minister before the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, but said that he did not yet know precisely how he would bring that about.

Plans were drawn up to temporarily re-allow "double jobbing", which would have allowed Jeffrey Donaldson to be in the Assembly and remain an MP.

However, these plans were dropped, so, if Jeffrey Donaldson were to become a member of the Assembly, he would cease to be an MP, triggering a by-election.

Jeffrey Donaldson was elected to the Assembly in the May 2022 election, but declined to take up his seat, with the party instead co-opting Emma Little-Pengelly.

Jeffrey Donaldson said he would not take up his Assembly seat until the situation over the Northern Ireland Protocol was resolved.

Jeffrey Donaldson supported Brexit, but called for the Northern Ireland Protocol agreement between the UK and the EU in December 2020, which establishes a customs and regulatory border in the Irish Sea separating Northern Ireland from Great Britain, to be reformed or revoked.

Jeffrey Donaldson opposes same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland, legalised by the British Government in December 2019.

On 26 June 1987, Jeffrey Donaldson married Eleanor Cousins, with whom he has two daughters.

Jeffrey Donaldson is a member of the mainstream Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

Jeffrey Donaldson described his national identity as geographically Irish, but as being "part of a wider group of nations that is British".

Jeffrey Donaldson believes that there is no contradiction in identifying as Irish, Northern Irish and British.

Jeffrey Donaldson's wife faced aiding-and-abetting charges related to the same matter.

Jeffrey Donaldson is charged with 11 offences relating to two complainants.

Jeffrey Donaldson's charges relate to two complainants and are alleged to have occurred between 1985 and 2004.

On 3 July 2024, Jeffrey Donaldson and his wife again appeared before Newry Magistrates' Court, where prosecution lawyers asserted that there was a prima facie case to answer and both defendants had failed to offer any contrary submissions.

On 21 February 2025, Eleanor Jeffrey Donaldson applied to have two charges against her, one of aiding and abetting her husband along with a separate charge of child neglect, withdrawn during an in camera no-bill application hearing at Newry Crown Court.

Jeffrey Donaldson was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 2007.