OK, let’s start off with a laugh on this grey, chilly morning. By now you’re bound to know that Theresa May’s withdrawal bill is going to place the Irish border in the Irish Sea. At least that’s what the DUP claim. Which is why they have abstained from voting with the Tory government once already, and look like doing so again. Sammy Wilson says that since the Tory government have not kept their side of the bargain, his party “do not feel obligated to deliver on our pledges”.
It’s the way Sammy tells them. The DUP have eyeballed Theresa May’s government, with threats of withdrawing its Confidence and Supply arrangement (what a grand title for a grubby pact) if any agreement made with the EU doesn’t protect the Precious Union. Which was another way of saying our Tormented Green Corner must be treated exactly the same as the rest of the UK, even if it’s to our disadvantage. Now Theresa has agreed a deal with the EU that does differentiate between our TGC and the rest of the UK. And what do the DUP do? They abstain from voting in the House of Commons.
Was there ever a more limp-wristed response to a defiant action? If the border-in-the-sea really means so much to the DUP, shouldn’t they follow through on their threats and throw all their weight against it? But that’s not taking into account the difficulties the DUP currently find themselves in.
There are three real stinkers facing them right now.
- If the DUP finds its cajones and does actually pull the plug on its deal with the Tories, where does it go? Back into the total insignificance it has traditionally had in the British House of Commons, with MPs scrambling over the top of each other to get out of the Chamber before Nigel or Sammy starts talking. Not a pretty prospect.
- The DUP now stands clearly opposed to the wishes of the business community here. We all know that business here is struggling – ask any of the Bombardier workers who have lost or will lose their jobs – and now forty business leaders from here have gone to Downing Street to tell Theresa May to push on with her withdrawal bill, they think that all things considered it’s not bad, and to ignore the rantings of Nigel and his gang.
- The Ulster Farmers’ Union have just told the DUP the love affair is over. For months, the UFU have bit their collective lip and said nothing about the dangers a hard Brexit poses. Why? Because they wanted to stay loyal to the DUP, with whom they’ve traditionally had strong ties. No more. The UFU have looked at what their erstwhile sweethearts have been pushing for and have decided they’re not going to go to the slaughter-house quietly. So they’ve told the DUP, in polite language, to stop trying to ruin the livelihoods of its members.
That’s a tough situation for a party like the DUP to find itself in: many of your natural voters openly denouncing your tactics. The question is, will that hurt the DUP electorally, if there was a Westminster election inside the next twelve months? Logic, common sense, self-preservation should demand that it does. But as we know from sad past experience, throwing a Union flag over the back of a donkey and announcing it as a very fine unionist candidate has always been enough to pull in the votes in the past. Don’t be too sure they won’t do the same again, even though their traditional allies can see that the DUP don’t mind jumping off a commercial cliff providing they’ve got a Union flag clenched in their hot little fist.
But while there’s little chance that the DUP’S traditional allies in the business and farming world will desert them in the next election, what if those organisations copied the DUP and decided to abstain?
We live in brown-trouser times.
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