The Supreme Court ruling on religious teaching and worship in Northern Ireland’s schools might be considered a godsend by the DUP.

The party has been revelling in culture war skirmishes on education. Suddenly, it has been gifted an enormous battlefield, allies, weapons and a phantom enemy.

The Supreme Court has not demanded secularism, merely some room for other faiths and none under a largely unchanged system, with Christianity still dominant.

The timing is perfect for Paul Givan, the DUP education minister. He is in the process of establishing a statutory management authority for controlled schools, or ‘state schools’ as they are often known.

Newton Emerson: Supreme Court ruling on religious education is a godsend for DUP

They are the only sector without such a body and creating one was recommended by a 2023 independent review, so Givan is objectively correct to set it up. However, some of the DUP’s opponents have accused it of wanting a ‘Protestant CCMS’.

The three main Protestant Churches can certainly expect a prominent role in the new authority, with seats on its board. Now they have more reason than ever to want that power and a fresh sense of purpose to use it.

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Last month, Sinn Féin Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald asked her department and its main agency, Invest NI, to ensure they are not supporting “the manufacture of arms or components that are used for genocide”.

The DUP has used an Assembly call-in petition to refer this to the whole Executive, where unionists can block it. This is a response to last week’s failed no confidence motion against Paul Givan over his trip to Israel.

Speaker Edwin Poots noted that the call-in procedure, introduced by the St Andrews Agreement, is “rarely used”. It is so obscure that the normally punctilious Poots referred to the wrong section of the law while invoking it.

Although the DUP clearly feels it has pulled off an ingenious........

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