The Truth about May’s DUP Alliance To Keep Power – Will She Keep it Amid Calls To Quit

By Graham Vanbergen: Eight weeks ago Theresa May called a snap election, risking her government for the chance to bank a bigger majority against what looked and felt like a shambolic Labour opposition destined for implosion. With the Conservatives 21 points ahead in the opinion polls, it was surely a one-way bet to a landslide victory and a renewed five-year term for her party. Some analysts put her majority at over 200, most at 100 to 150. But slowly, over the course of just one month, there followed one of the most dramatic collapses in British political history.

 

To save her job despite the implications for the Tory party and the country more widely, May has stooped in desperation to an alliance with the DUP,  a party who values represent anti choice, anti-gay and anti-abortion rights. They are a party of religious bigots and climate change deniers who have called for the return of the death penalty – a party of extremists – what type of alliance is that for modern day Britain looking outward in a post Brexit world?

 

May’s hypocrisy is breathtaking if only asking a simple question – if Jeremy Corbyn is a “terrorist sympathiser”, then what will Theresa May be when she joins up with the DUP, a party that is endorsed publicly and politically by the Red Hand Commando (classified as a terrorist organisation with dozens of civilian murders to its name), the Ulster Volunteer Force, (classified as a terrorist organisation – with over 500 murders) and the Ulster Defence Association (over 400 murders)? These supporters of the DUP are paramilitary and vigilante groups. They often acted under cover names to get around being labelled as terrorists by the British government and were responsible for literally hundreds and hundreds of murders. The list of their combined crimes of car-bombings, knee-capping, murders, thuggery, brutality and intimidation takes reams to list. One should not forget that 85% of their victims were civilians.

 

BREXIT was supposed to make Britain find its own identity again. Disentangled and uninhibited from the ties of the European Union with its unelected bureaucrats, it would surely rediscover its native ambitions and genius and thoroughly embrace a truly unique mixture of nationalism and globalism. All it needed was great leadership to steady the ship in the choppy waters ahead and May promised that, if nothing else. The reality for Britain is the dream has turned into a nightmare. The Conservatives have led the country amid a backdrop of terrorism caused by appalling foreign policy decisions towards division, hatred and racism. In the meantime shocked and somehow confused by Brexit, Britain is quickly turning into that truly awful so-called ally – America. What could be worse?

 

Britain has now taken some first steps down a very dangerous path with its own ‘coalition of chaos.’ How the Tory party can allow this alliance is utterly beyond comprehension, logic or reason. The Tories will forever be branded with this alliance and their terrible stewardship of Gt. Britain. Our competitors, especially in the EU are loving every moment of this fiasco.

Truthfully, like David Cameron, Theresa May lost her gamble – and that’s that.

 

Soon, there will will be protests outside No10 Downing Street. There are already reports that “Protestors were chanting “Hey Ho Theresa May has got to go” and “Tories Tories Tories Out Out Out” as crowds gathered on Whitehall outside the prime minister’s residence. Expect more of that in future.

A Robert Peston tweet says it all from an angry Tory party insider who gets quoted: Senior Tory MP” “We all fxxxing hate her. But there is nothing we can do. She has totally fxxxed us.” It doesn’t get stronger than that does it!

Peston, political editor of ITV news went further as to predict that “we are entering a period of chronic political instability, and another general election in the autumn looks almost inevitable.”

 

 The FT: “Arlene Foster, leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, with hard right-wing political views and accused of the mismanagement of £hundreds of million of public funds in office – herself no stranger to controversy has said it will be “difficult” for Theresa May to survive as UK prime minister.” Mauled at her own election just three months where she lost over a quarter of seats,  Foster would know all about that.

 

Scandal ridden Peter Robinson, a former DUP leader and former Northern Ireland first minister involved in some very nasty incidents including supporting terrorist organisations, told the BBC “We will be looking for the very best deal for Northern Ireland.”  Well, the DUP have the Tories over a barrel on that one. God knows what concessions will be given to them and how much it will cost taxpayers in shiny new roads and government buildings.

 

Craig Murray, former British ambassador: “The DUP are corrupt, homophobic, racist and above all religious bigots of the worst kind. The nastiest people in politics. The utterly discredited Theresa May refuses to resign and intends to continue to rule over us with the support of this ugly faction. Popular support for the Tory government is going to plunge to unprecedented levels. This gruesome malformation of a bigots’ alliance between Brexiteers is not going to last long as a government, and the popular retribution will be massive.”

 

Huffington Post: “Let me be clear from the outset, the DUP and some of its MLAs hold some pretty appalling views on LGBT rights. The party’s entrenched opposition to equal marriage has prevented the LGBT population in Northern Ireland from benefitting for the same rights as LGBT people in the rest of the United Kingdom and this is unacceptable. It is right, therefore that, as a modern, pro-equality party, that the Conservatives are not even considering entering into a coalition with the DUP.”

 

Peter Foster, Europe Editor of the Telegraph tweeted “so let me get this straight – Theresa May doesn’t have the authority to reshuffle her cabinet but she does to conduct Brexit talks!

 

The Economist: “The PM will very soon have to grapple with three crises. First is the chronic instability that has taken hold of Britain’s politics, and which will be hard to suppress. Second, the economy is heading for the rocks in a way that few have yet registered. And third, in just 11 days, is the most important negotiation Britain has attempted in peacetime. Brexit involves dismantling an economic and political arrangement that has been put together over half a century.”

 

Heidi Allen, the newly re-elected MP for South Cambridgeshire, has said, in effect, that May should step down and it is only the imminence of Brexit talks which might necessitate her staying on as prime minister for a few more months.

 

As Prime Minister, May’s attitude has been never explain, never apologise. But she would have been wise to show some contrition and humility today, writes James Forsyth at the Spectator.

The Guardian also reports that “Theresa May refused to commit herself to trying serve a full parliament as PM. Asked if she could last five years as PM, she replied:

‘What is important is that we bring the government together, we form a government, in the national interest at this critical time for our country because we do face the challenge of those Brexit negotiations. So it’s important to have a government that can take the negotiations through. That’s what I’m doing, forming a government.”

 

Bloomberg: “If May stays on, her job will become much harder. The fact of Brexit doesn’t change with this election, but the shape of it almost certainly does. The government will have to rely on parties that disagree with its approach to pass a hugely complex deal – if one is reached at all – through two houses of parliament. That may mean a gentler Brexit; or just a more confusing one.”

 

Britain is now staring into the abyss, led by a shambolic party with no vision for the future other than division and despair for the generations that will suffer from the incompetent mismanagement of neoliberal extremists.

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