The Stormont Agriculture minister won over the party electorate with his “strength and experience to lead” strapline. As part of his bid for the leadershp, Mr Poots stressed that he would “reform our party” and “reinvigorate unionism”. Mr Poots previously indicated he will nominate a colleague to serve as first minister and has vowed to end a party culture of policy-making “on the hoof”. Mr Poots meets firefighters in Co Down (Rebecca Black/PA) His pledge to make policy-making more participatory was included in a “manifesto for reform” that he circulated to the members of the DUP’s electoral college this week .