MATTHEW JAMISON --Theresa May's Dirty DUP Deal

MATTHEW JAMISON | 28.06.2017 | WORLD

Theresa May's Dirty DUP Deal

Theresa May has finalized a shameful and disgraceful deal with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party to help her cling on to power and prop up her minority Tory Government. Never in Mrs. May's wildest nightmares could she have imagined when she called the ghastly 2017 General Election in a naked power grab for a landslide majority, she would be returned to 10 Downing Street having lost seats with a share of the national vote only 2% higher than Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, and no majority of her own to govern effectively in the House of Commons.

So she has had to buy votes from one of the most right-wing, racist, homophobic, sexist, Islamophobic, sectarian and backwards parties in all of the UK. What can one say about the DUP? They are a freak circus of inarticulate, antediluvian bigots who exist in the stone ages. The DUP have a long history of close links and associations with the Protestant colonist terrorist «loyalists» of Northern Ireland. The loyalist terrorists started the conflict in Northern Ireland not the IRA. It was the virulently anti-Catholic sectarian DUP and their allies in the loyalist terrorist groups such as the UVF, UFF and UDA who waged a vicious campaign of violence, civil disobedience and discrimination against the Roman Catholic, Irish nationalist minority in Northern Ireland from the early 1960s onwards in much the same way white supremacists in the United States fought against the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King. 

The DUP under their abominable Cult leader, the maniac «Reverend» Ian Paisley, opposed every single initiative and proposal to bring peace between the warring communities of Northern Ireland up until 2007 when Ian Paisley was able to become First Minister. Paisley's road to Damascus was about forty years in the making and because of him and his politics of bigotry/fear and his methods of whipping up the uneducated Protestant loyalist masses, quite a lot of innocent people lost their lives during that period. The members of the DUP are quite a motley crew. We have the former DUP Leader and First Minster Peter Robinson and his wife Iris. Mrs. Robinson had to resign her seat in disgrace from the House of Commons and her membership of the DUP was terminated when it came to light she had an extramarital affair with a 19-year-old in 2008 and she and her husband were faced with allegations of financial impropriety related to the affair. 

The Robinsons were also major culprits in the 2009 Parliamentary expenses scandal. Mr. Robinson has had a long history of being involved with loyalist terrorists and was involved in a financial scandal of his own while stating that he: »wouldn't trust Muslims devoted to Sharia Law, but I would trust them to go down to the shops for me». Another DUP MP a Mr. Sammy Wilson has been embroiled in a racist scandal of his own. Ironically for the DUP which is militantly anti-gay quite a few of their members are repressed homosexuals. Then we have their current leader a Ms. Arlene Foster who gave away half a billion pounds in public money to her cronies in the infamous «Cash for Ash» scandal. If this had happened in China, Ms. Foster would be in jail, not handed a further 1 Billion Pounds of public money by Theresa May to waste, as she wasted the last Half a Billion Pounds.

These are Mrs. May's new British Government partners, her «strong friends» in the DUP, whom she has said share «many values» with her own Tory Party. The price for propping up and keeping in power the shameful, arrogant, lightweight Theresa May has been 1 Billion Pounds in taxpayers money (mainly English taxpayers money). Mrs. May has in effect bought votes in the House of Commons. During her appalling General Election campaign Mrs. May repeatedly said there was no «magic money tree» to end austerity for the police, nurses, doctors, teachers, ambulance drivers, social services and other critical public service workers. Yet, very conveniently, she has found a «magic money tree» to give the DUP a further 1 Billion Pounds to waste as they wasted almost Half a Billion Pounds in the «Cash for Ash» scandal. This woman May is pathetic and must go! There are many factors regarding the Tory-DUP deal which have severe implications nationally and internationally: 

1.) By once again putting short-term political expediency above the national and international interest Theresa May is risking peace and stability in Northern Ireland. It took a lot of hard, commendable, noble work from the Conservative Prime Minister John Major and the Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair to bring to an end the violence and mayhem of Northern Ireland's conflict. The superb John Major and equally brilliant Jonathan Powell have rightly pointed out that Mrs. May risks undoing all that painstakingly difficult work by aligning herself and her minority Tory Government with one party in the factional tribalism of the sectarian dysfunction that is Northern Ireland politics. The devolved consociational Stormont administration brought about by the Good Friday Agreement which governs at a provincial level in Belfast is still not up and running after six months in the abyss due to Foster's arrogance (similar to Theresa May) and her wasting of Half a Billion Pounds. 

2.) By aligning herself with such a reactionary and toxic party Mrs. May also risks undoing the work of David Cameron in detoxifying the Conservative Party brand and making it more acceptable to a more socially liberal and progressive population in England. 

3.) By buying off votes in the House of Commons Mrs. May risks further inflaming social tensions between the constituent members of the UK and aggravating tensions within Britain's Muslim community due to the DUP's long track record of Islamophobia. Already the Welsh and Scottish administrations are asking if 1 Billion Pounds can be found for Northern Ireland what about Wales and Scotland? What about ending austerity in England? Mrs. May's «cheap talk» as John Major correctly put it will be seen for just that. May repeatedly said during the General Election money could not be found for ending austerity in England, yet magically, she has found the money to end austerity in Northern Ireland. 

4.) The Tory-DUP deal will have ramifications for what kind of Brexit is finally negotiated. The DUP are virulently anti-EU and want the hardest possible Brexit minus a hard border between Northern and Southern Ireland. As Mrs. May is now heavily dependent on their number for votes on Brexit legislation this will have real implications for Britain's withdrawal from the EU.

5.) By bringing into the heart of the British Government an aggressively Islamophobic, anti-Muslim party, Mrs. May risks undermining the claim by NATO, the West and the United States that its «war on terror» in places such as Syria and Iraq is not a war on Muslims. The Muslim community in Britian is already feeling vulnerable and unfairly targeted through such Government surveillance programmes such as PREVENT. With the DUP having a say over security legislation and other matters this could risk further inflaming tensions with British Muslims and undermine the credibility of British military campaigns in places such as Syria and Afghanistan.