THE £1 BILLION HANDSHAKE
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THERESA MAY today spent almost £1 billion of taxpayers’ money on a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party to prop up her wobbly government. A smiling Prime Minister welcomed the leadership of the Northern Ireland party to Downing Street this morning to shake hands on the deal.
DUP leader Arlene Foster, with her Westminster group leader Nigel Dodds and chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, posed in triumph next to Mrs May outside No 10 before going in to formalise the agreement.
However, ex-Conservative chairman Chris Patten said the “toxic brand” of the DUP would taint Mrs May and Mayor Sadiq Khan hit out at “pork-barrel” politics that would cost Londoners in higher taxes. The extraordinary sum on the table is understood
to be worth about £96 million for each of the 10 Northern Ireland MPs promising to back Mrs May in some key votes.
The package is contingent on the Northern Ireland power-sharing executive being restored, creating an incentive for the DUP and Sinn Fein to get together after a period of stalled politics. The sum will be allocated to the executive to spend on “economic” support, including more cash for roads, hospitals and jobs.
Earlier this morning, Mrs Foster said the deal would be “totally transparent”. She told Sky News: “As the Prime Minister herself has said, the deal will be public.”
Lord Patten said the DUP’s hardline stance on issues such as gay equality would harm the Tories and cost taxpayers. He said: “The DUP is a toxic brand and the Conservative Party has got itself back into the situation where there’s a danger of it looking like the ‘nasty party’, to borrow from Theresa May. Every vote will cost you. Every vote, you will have to find some way of paying for it and then explain to the Scots and the Welsh and people in the North-East why they can’t have the same thing too.”
The agreement covers four areas of House of Commons divisions where defeat would bring down the Government or be against the national interest, including votes on Brexit, future confidence votes, the autumn Budget and issues of national security.
However, it does not cover day-to-day voting on other matters, which means the DUP is free to hold the Government to ransom if it wants to get its way.
It means this week’s critical vote on the Queen’s Speech package of proposed laws — the moment Mrs May’s new government must “prove” itself to remain in power — should be passed by a slender majority of up to 13.
Northern Ireland already gets about 21 per cent more public spending per head of population than the UK average. It is understood that the DUP asked for more money for infrastructure, including new roads, enhanced spending on schools and health as well as economic reforms including lower corporation tax status for the region.
There were also talks of abolishing the province’s air passenger duty, which sees many people in Northern Ireland drive to airports in the Republic to fly abroad. London, which has the highest GDP in the UK, has long subsidised the rest of the country, with Northern Ireland one of the main beneficiaries.
Mr Khan told the Standard: “There is understandable concern that the Government will throw gratuitous porkbarrel projects at the DUP in order to buy their support — but that will come at the expense of every other region of Britain.”
Social issues are usually devolved to Stormont and were not expected to be on Mrs Foster’s list of demands. But Mr Khan said: “Like many Londoners, I feel deeply uncomfortable about the idea of the DUP playing any role whatsoever in propping up a minority Tory government.
“The Prime Minister must make a crystal-clear statement that she rejects the illiberal and intolerant social views of the DUP and give a cast-iron guarantee that LGBT rights and women’s rights will not stall or go backwards at the expense of her staying in power.”
The Mayor is the latest in a line of senior political figures to raise concerns over the potential consequences of any deal. Ex-prime minister Sir John Major has said it could jeopardise the peace process. Former Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers, however, said she did not accept that a deal would make the Tories look “nasty”.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “There are issues on which we don’t agree with the DUP but these are, in the main, free vote issues. They are not going to be part of a deal.”