May’s Irish bailout

If the election result has severely weakened Theresa May, it has correspondingly strengthened another female politician – Arlene Foster, the Democratic Unionist Party leader, who could be seen beaming with delighted party colleagues at the election count in Northern Ireland.

After a stormy year there — in which the devolved Assembly collapsed amid allegations that Foster was to blame for a costly renewable heating scandal — the Westminster election has restored the DUP’s fortunes beyond its wildest dreams: with the ten seats it has won, the party could now take on the role of ‘kingmakers’ in a minority Conservative government. Early on Friday morning, it was quick to indicate its preparedness to lend support on a ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement rather than a formal coalition.

With this election, the DUP has also eliminated the Ulster Unionist Party from Westminster, once the seemingly unassailable behemoth of Unionist politics, which failed to return a single MP. The centre ground in Northern Ireland has become a sinkhole. Sinn Fein, with seven elected MPs, has similarly wiped out the Westminster representation of the moderate nationalist SDLP. Yet despite the Sinn Fein leadership’s long-standing close association with Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, it has stated it is not prepared to abandon its policy of abstention from the UK parliament.

In the coming weeks, in Foster’s words, the DUP ‘will do what is best for Northern Ireland’. Many political commentators on the mainland are asking, somewhat nervously, just what price that might entail: roads, schools, hospitals? The last time a minority Conservative government was dependent upon Unionist MPs was in 1996, when John Major’s administration was in jeopardy following a series of by-election defeats. But at that time, the largest Unionist party was David Trimble’s UUP.