For people who are devoted to ‘our wee country’, the DUP have a baffling way of showing it. I’m not talking about NAMA or Red Sky or even RHI, which on the face of it would appear to be a few yards short of selfless love of The Province. I’m talking about Westminster.
Do you remember when Gregory Campbell stood up in Stormont and talked about getting a can of Coke and his yoghurt curried? Or the early days of the Assembly when Martin McGuinness said it was nice to see Sammy Wilson with his clothe on? That couldn’t happen now, because Gregory and Sammy aren’t in Stormont. They’re in Westminster.
Look through the list of their MPs: Gregory and Sammy, Nigel Dodds, Jeffrey Donaldson ( he’s a Sir, you know), Ian Paisley Jr, Gavin Robinson, Paul Girvan. And it goes on. It looks as though the DUP has decided that it wants to take all its big guns out of OWC and put them in the British parliament.
This, of course, is the exact reverse of what Sinn Féin have been intent on doing. For a start, they have always boycotted Westminster. But they’ve also shown a desire to have as many powers as possible – for example, Justice – transferred to the six counties. In other words, they’d prefer to have Irish people in charge of Irish affairs, whereas the DUP appears to prefer to be in attendance at the Mother of Parliaments.
At this point, readers of a DUP persuasion are very probably yelling “But what about our deal with the Tories? Look at all the money we’ve squeezed out of them!” Which is true, or true-ish anyway. They have been promised £1 billion for the north of Ireland, but whether we’ll ever see this magic money is another matter. As for having influence in the House of Commons and so benefiting OWC, there can be few ways, short of lobbing a dead skunk in the chamber, of more successfully emptying the padded benches. Time for keeping the camera tight on Gregory or Nigel or whoever, because if this is a debate concerning Our Wee Province, the number of MPs who’ve suddenly remembered a prior engagement is truly impressive.
And one more thing: it is the DUP who are bringing us Brexit, the features of which look harder by the day. So we must thank the DUP MPs that have made it possible for the Tories to stay in office, and for ensuring that our Green Tormented Corner isn’t allowed – never, never, never, never – a place in the EU customs union and single market.
Brexit means Brexit and the DUP means an economic nuclear winter. Still, what’s a nuclear winter, as long as we’re still part of the Precious Union? Thanks, guys – and you too, Emma. I can’t think what we’d have done without you.
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