Gavin Robinson, Democratic Unionist MP for Belfast East since 2015 and leader of the DUP since 2024, inherited his party's command at its most exposed moment, and he did so as a man formed entirely inside the machine he now runs.

Born in Belfast in November 1984 and raised in the Stormont area of East Belfast, he describes himself as "east Belfast born, bred, buttered and battered". He was educated at Grosvenor Grammar School and at Queen's University Belfast, where he read law and took a master's in Irish politics, and he moved from the Presbyterian church of his upbringing to the Church of Ireland. The defining line on his record, and the one that explains his rise, is that from 2010 to 2015 he was special adviser to Peter Robinson, the DUP leader and First Minister and, despite the shared surname, no relation. He was trained at the centre of DUP power and then took the Belfast East seat Peter Robinson had himself held. He is, by formation, an insider, which is both his strength and a limit on how he can present himself.

His own career in office began in 2010, when he joined Belfast City Council in place of Sammy Wilson, and peaked early when he became Lord Mayor from 2012 to 2013. That term coincided with the City Hall flag dispute of December 2012, when loyalist protests erupted over the council's decision to fly the Union flag only on designated days, a crisis that grew partly out of unionist politics and that he had to hold the city through. In 2015 he unseated the Alliance leader Naomi Long to win Belfast East, served as the party's defence and home affairs spokesperson and on the Defence Committee, and rose to deputy leader in June 2023.

Then came the collapse that made him leader. When Jeffrey Donaldson resigned after being charged with historical sexual offences, Robinson became interim Westminster leader in March 2024 and full party leader in May, at 39. His first general election in charge, weeks later, was a retreat: the DUP shed three seats on the night, North Antrim to the TUV, Lagan Valley to Alliance and South Antrim to the UUP, and he himself held Belfast East over Naomi Long by 2,676 votes, on 46.6 per cent. Long remains permanently within reach of the seat.

His assets are real. He is younger, more fluent and less abrasive than the DUP's older generation, holds his seat on a strong personal vote, and has front rank Westminster standing. But he leads a party carrying damage he did not cause and cannot easily undo: a brand bruised by the Donaldson scandal, a Brexit settlement the DUP helped build that loosened Northern Ireland's place in the Union, and an Alliance surge eating into unionist seats. At 41 he is young for the job but old in DUP service. Whether he can steady the party, hold Belfast East and make unionism broader rather than angrier will decide whether his leadership is remembered as repair or as managed decline.