Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party did shockingly well in the British parliamentary elections yesterday and denied the Tories and outright majority of the seats. They might have even been able to form a government if not for Corbyn’s past association with the IRA. Unfortunately, Tory leader Theresa May was able to survive by reaching an agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Arlene Foster of Northern Ireland. Opposition to Corbyn was central to DUP’s decision.
DUP figures insist their relationship with May’s team has been close since she became prime minister 11 months ago, and that late-night talks had been driven by their dismay at the possibility of Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister.
A DUP source said: “We want there to be a government. We have worked well with May. The alternative is intolerable. For as long as Corbyn leads Labour, we will ensure there’s a Tory PM.”
The DUP is socially conservative and opposes abortion and gay rights, so it’s easy to see why it might align itself with the right, but it still could have been otherwise with a different Labour leader with a less controversial past.
The people of Northern Ireland are very concerned about how Brexit (the Brits’ decision to exit the European Union) will impact their border with the Republic of Ireland. They don’t want any disruption of the free flow of people and goods between the two Irelands.
Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, is keen to avoid a hard border with Ireland and has spoken against a “hard Brexit.”
She has said: “No-one wants to see a ‘hard’ Brexit, what we want to see is a workable plan to leave the European Union, and that’s what the national vote was about – therefore we need to get on with that.
“However, we need to do it in a way that respects the specific circumstances of Northern Ireland, and, of course, our shared history and geography with the Republic of Ireland.
On this issue, at least, the DUP and Labour were in more natural agreement:
Mr. Corbyn and several other party leaders had criticized Ms. May’s “hard Brexit” approach. Instead, Mr. Corbyn said he would negotiate a deal that kept some ties to the EU, including retaining membership in the single market, which provides for the free movement of goods, services and people. Many business leaders had also expressed concern about losing unfettered access to the European single market.
But there simply wasn’t any way that Northern Ireland Unionists could ally themselves with Corbyn and they made their decision accordingly. They hope that joining the majority will allow them to have more control over the Brexit negotiations with Europe and help them avoid a situation where Northern Ireland is granted a special status to remain (sort of) in the European Union.
The DUP’s “price” for propping up a new Tory government will include a promise that there will be no separate post-Brexit status for Northern Ireland, the party’s leader in Westminster has confirmed.
Nigel Dodds, re-elected as MP for Belfast North, said that among the DUP’s conditions would be an insistence that there be no deal that would keep the region with one foot still in the EU.
The DUP fears that separate status after Brexit – a key demand of Sinn Féin – would decouple Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
With one eye on the Brexit negotiations that begin in the next 10 days, Dodds said: “There are special circumstances in Northern Ireland and we will try to make sure these are recognised. As regards demands for special status within the European Union, no. Because that would create tariffs and barriers between Northern Ireland and our single biggest market, which is the rest of the United Kingdom.
“While we will focus on the special circumstances, geography and certain industries of Northern Ireland we will be pressing that home very strongly. Special status, however, within the European Union is a nonsense. Dublin doesn’t support it. Brussels doesn’t support it. The member states of the EU would never dream of it because it would open the door to a Pandora’s box of independence movements of all sorts. The only people who mentioned this are Sinn Féin.”
The DUP backed Brexit in last year’s EU referendum and regards as sacrosanct the UK’s decision to leave.
Sinn Féin has argued that because the Northern Ireland electorate voted by 56% to remain within Europe last year and that the region is the only one with a post-Brexit land border with the EU, the area should have special status.
I honestly have no idea how all their conflicting concerns can be resolved to their satisfaction, but I can understand why they want to be sitting in the majority rather than the minority as these decisions are made. They could have chosen to back Labour and sit with them, but instead they gave Theresa May a lifeline.
Is the DUP not the equivalent of the Tea Party? In theory, there are some overlapping areas of economic concern with the left. In fact, they’re homophobic racist misogynists who would never, ever join a leftwing government.
That’s what my British friend tells me, in any case.
They are. Hard right, pro-Brexit with connections to paramilitary organizations.
This is actually embarrassing.
Is the DUP not the equivalent of the Tea Party?
Yes!! And it’s not a given the Tories will be able to form a government. There are lawyers saying it would violate the Good Friday Agreement. So we shall see. Put it another way. That May’s only hope of holding on to power is reopening The Troubles is a bad sign for her. The Tories position is untenable. It’s just a question of whether she goes now or in 6 months.
DUP are climate change deniers and against same sex marriage. The Tea Party comparison is fitting.
congratulations on finding a unique take on the election. Nobody else on either continent is talking about what Corbyn did wrong.
The Unionist parties are deeply socially conservative, they are natural allies of the Tories, and are never likely to ally with Labour. With a different labour leader the chance might be slim rather than none, but talking about that ignores the fact that with a different Labour leader May might have gotten the landslide she expected.
this stuff about “Corbyn talked to the IRA” reminds me very much of the “premature anti-fascist” label that was used in the ’30s and ’40s. He accepted before the government did that peace in Ireland would not happen until they DID talk to the IRA, which is nothing to criticize him for IMO.
Several anysts on BBC radio last night explicitly noted this line of thinking as ridiculous.
Yes the BBC has become a pro-Tory mouthpiece with several senior Tories on it’s staff and none from labour. Corbyn’s line of argument is pretty mainstream in progressive circles.
I meant Booman’s line of thought was largely dismissed, not Corbyn. The general tone was closer to: No other current labor politician was likely to gotten the support he did. Greatest vote share swing since Atlee etc.
Opinions over @ET
Read my new diary …
○ PM May On Life Support – NI DUP Agreement
The best take is here, and truly she rises to Hunter S Thomson heights….
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/09/theresa-may-gamble?CMP=share_btn_tw
i like this one a lot (h/t ek at docudharma)
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/theresa-may-loses-majority-labour-gains-stability-shouldnt-gloat
-mark-steel-a7781426.html
These DUP schlubs … what are they — IDIOTS?
(1) they want freedom of movement across the NI/Irish border
(2) But they don’t want NI to have a special status
These two are contradictory, aren’t they?
I guess maybe as someone up-thread noted, they’re the equiv of the Tea Party? I guess if we’re talking about the ones who went around talking about “teabagging” like it was something great, I can agree.
Morons. And I’m not talking about their politics, offensive as it may be. I’m -just- talking about the logical, physical consistency of their demands.
expecting either consistency or intelligence from Christianists is a losing battle. Someone at dkos commented that the foundation of all DUP policies is stupidity.
I think the situation is that “special status” is some kind of catchphrase, so they have to call their special status something else.
This is wrong on several levels:
Good God the last thing she said was Forward Together….
If Corbyn in fact had won a less than majority vote:
* Would Sinn Fein have dropped its boycott of parliament and entered a coalition with Labour?
* Would Jeremy Corbyn be considered a political genius for his past support of Northern Irish Catholics?
I actually think there is too much of a nostalgic longing for Blair’s New Labour among many US Democrats.
But with Brexit still on the runway, Putin’s happy with the result. Right?
Would Sinn Fein have dropped its boycott of parliament and entered a coalition with Labour?
LOL!! Never. Doesn’t matter. Adams would be toast if he ever did that, even for a Corbyn-led government. Doing so would be considered shitting on the memory of Bobby Sands. And that’s not something you do as a member of Sinn Fein. Remember Clemenza’s famous remark in The Godfather about Paulie about the attempted assassination of Don Corleone?
Why would Democrats have nostalgia for the Blairite Labour Party when they can just remember the Clinton/Obama years? I’d bet many more Democrats could identify that Blair supported Bush and the Iraq war than are aware of his party’s governing ideology.
By far the most interesting part of the the UK election was the role of the Affordable Care Act’s legislative herdsman, Jim Messina. We always suspected he was a Tory at heart. Going to crush the NHS.
I think the business about Corbyn “supporting” the IRA comes down to his wanting to condemn violence by both the Provisional IRA and the Unionist paramilitaries. He was asked to condemn the Provisional IRA and he demurred and said violence by all paramilitary forces was bad. This gets twisted by the British rightwing tabloid press into “Corbyn supports the IRA”.
There was no chance that the DUP would have gone into coalition with Labour with a different party leader. Remember, the DUP was started by Rev. Ian Paisley, the Catholic hater who liked to denounce the Pope as “the whore of Babylon”.
Rev. Ian Paisley, the darling of Bob Jones University.
“Corbyn’s Past Support of the IRA Costs Labour”
What a load of bull.
The official title of the Conservative Party is “The Conservative and Unionist Party” and it has always been allied with Unionists – initially the now almost defunct official Unionists and now their successors, the DUP.
No Labour Party leader, Blair included, had the support of the Unionists because they tried to find an accommodation with the Nationalist minority in order to create a lasting peace when the Unionist identity is all about keeping the nationalists in their (subjugated) place.
If Corbyn had come out and condemned gay sex, said Roman Catholics were heretics, approved the expulsion of all brown people from N. Ireland and declared war on the Republic of Ireland he might have gotten the grudging support of the DUP.
As for Corbyn “supporting the IRA” – what a load of Tory tabloid crap. The guy is virtually a pacifist and opposes the British nuclear deterrent – a position which has actually cost Labour a lot of votes even when he watered it down to opposing a “first use” of nuclear bombs.
He supported talks with the IRA when the government was actually, clandestinely, talking to the IRA.
Labour did well in these elections because of Corbyn, for the most part, not despite him – even with the entire Tory propaganda apparatus blasting untruths about him.
You’re either swallowing Tory propaganda wholesale, or you are becoming a Tory…