One of the most
surprising results of the arrangement between the United Kingdom’s Conservative
Party and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland following the
indecisive General Election was the speed with which it was put together.
Apparently it took just a
telephone call between Prime Minister Theresa May and DUP leader Arlene Foster
to cement the relationship. Contrast this with similar situations in the past —
in 1974 and 2010 — when days of negotiations and horse trading were required before
an outcome was reached.
While the DUP has much in
common with May’s Conservatives, most importantly for her a desire to leave the
European Union, it is inconceivable that it would not just give away this
position of strength. The speedy resolution suggests only one thing — whatever the
DUP wants, it will get.
As it happened I was
present at the genesis of the party, on a hot midsummer night in 1970 when Ian
Paisley swept aside the sitting Ulster Unionist Member for North Antrim to
enter the British Parliament.
As a journalist covering
the event, I duly reported that Paisley had put his win down to the “hand of
God” at work in the electorate.
Its early name of the Protestant
Unionist Party was changed to give it wider appeal and it gradually overhauled
the Ulster Unionists, who had dominated Northern Ireland politics for decades.
Paisley remained at the
DUP’s head for more than 35 years and while the hardline stance to power
sharing with the province’s Catholic minority has softened, other positions —
anti-same sex marriage, dismissive of climate change, opposed to abortion,
opposed to international family planning programs — remain in place. It has in
the past campaigned against the liberalisation of homosexuality laws.
Perhaps the greatest
concern is over the future of the delicate power-sharing arrangements that have
brought peace and a degree of prosperity to Northern Ireland for the past
quarter of a century.
Should anything in the
DUP’s demands concern major changes to this arrangement then a return to the ‘The
Troubles’ — the sectarian violence that plagued the province for a generation
from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s, would be more than possible.
Just out of interest, who were you working for in Belfast in 1970? I was a reporter on the Belfast Newsletter and for Reuters in Belfast from 1964-1973 and yet never came across you. I thought I knew all the Anglo reporters in the city but obviously misses you.
ReplyDeleteJust out of interest, who were you working for in Belfast in 1970? I was a reporter on the Belfast Newsletter and for Reuters in Belfast from 1964-1973 and yet never came across you. I thought I knew all the Anglo reporters in the city but obviously misses you.
ReplyDelete