Poots served as a local government councillor on Lisburn City Council before being elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in the 1998 election. 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. His father, Charles Poots, was also a DUP politician, having stood in the 1969 Northern Ireland general election for the Protestant Unionist Party. He is a farmer and is married with four children. Poots was educated at the Wallace High School, Lisburn, and then studied at Greenmount Agricultural College. įollowing the death of his friend Christopher Stalford, it was announced on 7 March 2022 that Poots would be co-opted to fill the Belfast South Assembly seat, and run in the 2022 Assembly election, leaving a vacancy in Lagan Valley. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson succeeded Poots on 30 June 2021. However, less than three weeks later, on 17 June, following controversy over his decision to nominate Paul Givan to be First Minister, Poots announced that he had requested a new leadership contest and that he would remain in post until a successor was appointed. In 2020, he was reappointed to the Executive by First Minister Arlene Foster as Minister of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs.Īfter Foster resigned as DUP leader in 2021, Poots was elected as her successor, defeating Jeffrey Donaldson. He was removed as Health Minister in 2014. In 2009, Poots returned to the Northern Ireland Executive as Minister of the Environment, before being promoted to Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in 2011. Poots left office after Peter Robinson became First Minister in 2008. In 2007, First Minister Ian Paisley appointed Poots to the Northern Ireland Executive as Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure. He was first elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in 1998, and was appointed Minister of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs in January 2020. Minister of Health, Social Services and Public SafetyĮdwin Poots (born 27 April 1965) is a British politician in Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from May to June 2021. Strong opponentĪs Minister for Health he tried to maintain a ban on gay men giving blood which had been lifted elsewhere in the UK, a ban later found by the High Court to be “irrational”, and also opposed same-sex couples being allowed to adopt children.Minister of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs On the religious, Paisleyite wing of the party, he is opposed to the decriminalisation of abortion in the North and has courted controversy over his views on evolution – he is a Creationist who believes the earth was created around 4,000 years ago – and homosexuality. From a farming background, his father was one of the founding members of the DUP he has been an MLA for Lagan Valley since 1998 and held several ministerial portfolios, including Culture, Health and, currently, Agriculture. Poots comes with plenty of experience and impeccable credentials. The source was in “no doubt” the party would prefer to reach an internal consensus on the next leader – and deputy leader – rather than have a potentially damaging leadership contest. One DUP source described Poots as clearly ahead of the other potential candidates, but also said there was widespread support within the party for separating the roles of party leader and First Minister. In the case of a leadership election, it will be decided by the DUP’s MLAs and MPs, which, given Poots’ long-standing presence in the Assembly, is surely to his advantage. Whether or not the contest goes to a vote, it will be the party that decides.
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