As the anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, anti-LGBT, hardline right-wingers now find themselves at the heart of the new government, how alarmed should we be?
With the air of Kingmakers who knew their time had come, the 10 new Northern Irish DUP MPs, stood in front of the assembled cameras and confirmed their offer to support a Conservative minority government. Fresh from local elections, where a chastened DUP had for the first time lost its unionist majority after a cash-for-ash scandal, Theresa May’s cap-in-hand plea couldn’t have been more welcome. But with an appalling record on women’s and LGBT rights, any deal between the Tories and DUP makes for a very uncomfortable alliance.
Prior to Friday’s General Election results, if people on the British mainland had heard of the DUP, it was likely for their staunch opposition to LGBT rights. Less talked about was their anti-Catholic bigotry and links with Protestant paramilitaries. To understand them fully, it is important to recognise the background of The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1968-1998). A central issue was the imbalance in Protestant-Catholic equality. For a long time, Catholics were politically marginalised and denied the same housing, education and employment opportunities as their Protestant counterparts. Internment without trial led to the rise of the Catholic Civil Rights Movement, and laterally the Provisional IRA. To combat Irish republicanism, Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups such as the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) formed. They committed similarly random sectarian murders to those of the IRA, but are less known as none of their attacks were on the British mainland and the vast majority of victims were Irish Catholic civilians.
The Democratic Unionist Party was formed in 1971 by Ian Paisley and other breakaways from the Ulster Unionist Party, who believed their party had become too lenient on Catholics. It was initially a party of protest, concerned that a softening of attitudes towards the ethnically Irish was eroding Protestant supremacy. They opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Good Friday Agreement, and were considered the unofficial political counterpart of the Loyalist paramilitaries.
The DUP have a long history of sexist and homophobic comments. Unlike errant UKIP representatives who make offensive comments in a personal capacity and are subsequently distanced by the party, the DUP comment proudly and in public. In front of a committee of UK MPs investigating child abuse, Iris Robinson, the wife of former party leader Peter Robinson stated that “gays are viler than child abusers”. Health Minister Jim Wells was subject to a police hate speech investigation, while another health minister spent almost £100k of public money banning gay men from donating blood and appealing a High Court decision to ban civil partners from adopting children. The DUP’s homophobia is extreme and deep-seated, so it is no surprise that they have single-handedly and repeatedly blocked equal marriage legislation supported by the majority of people in Northern Ireland.
Profoundly socially conservative and fiercely anti-abortion (including in the case of rape or fatal foetal disability), the DUP have blocked any extension of the UK 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. Women risk jail for buying abortion pills over the internet. As the largest party in government, their views have been imposed in the normal running of things from services to tourism. The National Trust was even forced to amend an exhibition on how the Giant’s Causeway was formed to include a creationist view. In a true Trump-esque move, the DUP appointed a climate change denier to the office of environmental minister.
The DUP have also been one of the most incessant voices throughout the General Election banging the Corbyn ‘terrorist-sympathiser’ drum. Now that they’ve been unexpectedly thrust into centre-stage, the party’s own links with Protestant paramilitaries is coming under increasing scrutiny. The UVF, UFF and UDA issued a joint statement urging the Protestant community to vote for several DUP candidates in the Westminster election. It has also been reported that leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster, met with the head of the UDA, following the fatal shooting of a man in a supermarket car park in front of his 3-year-old son last week.
Colluding with a party with such sinister connections would be awkward at best for May. The partnership also risks undermining all that’s been achieved in the Northern Ireland peace process by ruining the crucial neutrality of the British government in Northern Ireland. This couldn’t have happened at a more perilous moment for Northern Ireland, with the collapse of power-sharing and threat of Brexit hanging like a spectre at the feast. Due to Sinn Fein’s principle of abstentionism – to abstain in Westminster – means that Northern Ireland’s only representation at Westminster is now the Brexit-backing DUP. The combined fact of imposed direct rule, and DUP at the heart of Westminster, escalates an already highly political, fragile system.
It is yet to be seen if May, blindsided by the election result, knows the exact consequences of her hasty patch-coalition with the DUP, how much influence they’ll wield, or their lengthily list of demands. Yet it is now likely that the DUP will come under increased scrutiny in this new position than it ever has done in Northern Ireland – in a Britain less tolerant to its constant string of scandals and rampant religious bigotry.
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