After five years as DUP leader, Arlene Foster is about to step down and make way for the election of a new leader in this the 50th year of the party.
Last year, during an earlier episode of dissent within the DUP, a former Stormont Spad was asked by a BBC interviewer about the possibility of a leadership challenge.
He replied that there was no threat at that time, but that, as the 2022 Assembly election drew nearer, MLAs and others would ask themselves whether the party would fare better under the current leadership or under a new leadership.
A year later, 22 MLAs and four MPs decided the party would fare better under a new leader and a new leadership.
But the discontent within the party has been much wider and deeper than that, with officers from eight DUP associations submitting letters that reflected that discontent.
So, why has it come to this? At the last Assembly election, in March 2017, the DUP dropped to 28 seats, just one ahead of Sinn Fein, and that was a shock to the DUP and to unionism.
The DUP had gone into that election damaged by RHI, whereas Sinn Fein was able to mobilise support with an energised campaign based on claims of "nationalist victimhood" and a demand for "rights".
The party recovered somewhat in the 2017 Westminster election, but it suffered another blow with the loss of two Westminster seats in December 2019, including that of the deputy leader, Nigel Dodds.
Ironically, just two days ago, it was reported that the Sinn Fein leadership in Londonderry was being "asked" to step down after the loss of the Foyle seat at Westminster to the SDLP in 2019.
Sinn Fein had carried out a post-election review and was implementing an action plan in time for the 2022 Assembly election and that is how any organisation should react to a setback - analyse thoroughly and act decisively. There has been no evidence of an equivalent approach by the DUP.
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein had collapsed devolution in January 2017 and it held out for three years until January 2020 before returning to Stormont. This return only came about on the back of the New Decade, New Approach agreement, which caused significant disquiet across unionism.
Within weeks, Covid-19 had halted much normal party-political activity. That kept a lid on the discontent within the DUP, but under the lid it was simmering away and then the temperature was turned up.
The breaches of the Covid regulations by Sinn Fein at the Bobby Storey funeral, the mishandling of the issue by the PSNI, the ramping-up of nationalist and republican rhetoric about a "border poll", the Northern Ireland Protocol with an internal border in the UK have all angered unionists, including members of the DUP. They were also disappointed by the confused messaging around the party's "five-point plan" to fight the Protocol.
As the temperature was turned up, the pressure built up and then finally it boiled over from discontent into open defiance and a demand for change.
First Minister Michelle O'Neill of Sinn Fein, Deputy Leader Simon Coveney of Fine Gael, Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Julian Smith, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and First Minister Arlene Foster of the DUP during a meeting at Stormont on January 13, 2020 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
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Then prime minister Theresa May greets DUP leader Arlene Foster outside 10 Downing Street (PA)
Arlene Foster with Sinn Fein deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill (Liam McBurney/PA)
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Peter Robinson watches as Arlene Foster is formally elected as leader of the DUP in 2015 (Liam McBurney/PA)
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DUP Leader Arlene Foster attends the GAA Ulster Final in Clones (Niall Carson/PA)
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DUP leader Arlene Foster with her 10 MPs in 2017 when the party was riding high.
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First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill (Kelvin Boyles/Press Eye)
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Taoiseach Micheal Martin and First Minister Arlene Foster in Dublin Castle ( PA)
Arlene Foster said the party’s Westminster result in 2017 was among the high points (Niall Carson/PA)
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Arlene Foster after she was formally elected as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in 2015 (Liam McBurney/PA)
Arlene Foster after she was formally elected as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in 2015 (Liam McBurney/PA)
Arlene Foster interviewed after bus bomb bid
Career: Foster at the DUP conference in 2016
Still a member of UUP in 1999
Foster with Theresa May when DUP signed a deal to support the Tory Government
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Arlene with her parents John and Georgina in 2015
Foster with Michelle O’Neill at a GAA match in 2018
Foster as a child in Fermanagh
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Arlene Foster, who is stepping down as DUP party leader and as First Minister (Niall Carson/PA)
New DUP Leader Arlene Foster with Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds after been formally elected
Arlene Foster outside Stormont, Belfast on the day she became the first woman to lead Northern Ireland's power-sharing Executive. Pic Brian Lawless/PA Wire 11/01/16
First Minister Michelle O'Neill of Sinn Fein, Deputy Leader Simon Coveney of Fine Gael, Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Julian Smith, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and First Minister Arlene Foster of the DUP during a meeting at Stormont on January 13, 2020 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
Many rank-and-file members were further alarmed last Tuesday by the mishandling of the Assembly debate on 'gay conversion therapy'. They were content with the DUP amendment to protect the right of Christians to preach the gospel and to pray, but were deeply troubled that, when that was voted down, five members, including the party leader, abstained on the final vote.
Indeed, it has been claimed that the leadership wanted all members to abstain on that final vote. In that case, the fact that three-quarters of DUP MLAs defied this instruction was especially significant.
But long-standing members are asking how this could have happened. There was no doubt about the fact that there was deep concern about the issue: that very morning there was a newspaper article about it from the moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly. This was not an issue that you could afford to mishandle.
The dissent was already there and had been there for quite some time, but last week's vote exposed it for the first time in a long time.
There will now be a leadership election, but this is about much more than that. There is need for a rapid and radical reform of the party organisation, developing a research capacity, establishing an outreach and engagement programme, as well as a training programme, and all the other things that make up a modern party that is fit for purpose.
There is a need to rebuild the party membership and the party machine and to build a wider movement, in the same way that Sinn Fein has a wider movement around it.
The DUP may be entering uncharted territory, but unionism needs a strong unionist party and the challenge for the DUP is to make the most of this window of opportunity.
