It is inconceivable May’s deal with DUP won’t hurt Northern Irish peace process

The most controversial aspect of the “confidence and supply” deal between the Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party is not the one that relates to financial help for the province, and the complexities of the Barnett formula (your report, 27 June). It is the paragraph that indicates that the DUP will not interfere with the government’s role as a neutral broker in Northern Ireland.

How can that be possible in a situation where the politics of the area are now dominated by the DUP and Sinn Fein? Stability in the area depends on a tenuous working relationship by the two parties, trying to get agreement on all sort of things like education, economic development, health, security, trade, relations with the Republic of Ireland and cultural identity.

That relationship frequently breaks down and needs mend- ing. It is naïve to pretend that the DUP would be prepared to sit back and let the UK Government and Sinn Fein set the agenda.

Having said that, Arlene Foster and her colleagues can hardly be blamed for pressing to get the maximum advantage for her constituents in a hung parliament situation. The SNP can cry foul, but it is likely that they would have tried to gain the same advantage had a Labour-led minority government depended on its support for getting through its policies on tuition fees, minimum wages and so on.

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon may now be paying the price of too rigid a stance on which other parties it will work with. Now they have to cope with the galling spectacle of a rightist movement in Northern Ireland getting the Conservatives to climb down on means testing of winter fuel payments and abandonment of the triple lock on pensions. They still have much to learn about how to use Westminster to gain concessions for Scotland.

BOB TAYLOR Shiel Court, Glenrothes

One of the least attractive features of US political parties is the so-called “pork barrel” deals whereby favours are granted to local politicians (a new road, a new factory) in return for supporting that party. Not something to which we British would ever descend, it was said.

But, in the history of British politics, there has never been such a blatant pork barrel deal as the current bribe of £1.5 billion to the DUP to support this failed Prime Minister.

Not only does it corrupt the political system, setting a precedent for future bribes, but it risks the whole peace process in Northern Ireland by favouring an extreme, rightwing, Unionist group over the republicans, in direct contravention of the Good Friday Agreement.

To add insult to injury the bribe will be paid for by the taxpayer to the tune of about £150 million from Scotland alone.

The Union of 1707 was achieved by bribing several hundred Scottish aristocrats. For their £1.5 billion the Tories have got ten Orangemen. That’s inflation for you, but they are still “a parcel of rogues”.

JAMES DUNCAN Rattray Grove, Edinburgh

We should be in no doubt that the deal that Theresa May has struck with the DUP to cling on to government is an insult to those of us who voted for Jeremy Corbyn and Kezia Dugdale’s progressive agenda. Instead of a government committed to ending austerity across the UK, we now have one that will end it only in Northern Ireland.

This absurd outcome is what happens when minority governments undertake grubby deals behind closed doors. We saw the same in Holyrood in 2007 (SNP/TORY), in Westminster in 2010 (Tory/lib-dem) and more recently in Scotland when the SNP needed Green support to cut local authority budgets.

Whilst many will welcome such deals as a step towards consensus politics, they offer parties which have only limited support an opportunity to exert undue influence whilst simultaneously ensuring larger “losing” parties remain locked out of government.

The DUP won just 292,316 votes, but it now holds more power than Scottish Labour (717,007 votes) and the UK Labour Party (12,878,460 votes). Theresa May needs to explain why doing a deal to end austerity in Northern Ireland with a party that won 0.9 per cent of the vote in the UK was just as easy as ignoring those millions of voters who backed Labour’s transformative vision.

After all, we should be creating good quality jobs and building sustainable homes right across the UK, not just in Northern Ireland.

(CLLR) SCOTT ARTHUR Labour, Colinton/fairmilehead Buckstone Gardens, Edinburgh

Cash for honours has nothing on the new deal, cash for power – a shameful and devious deal with taxpayers’ cash, and all to keep the Conservatives in power at any cost. CATRIONA C CLARK Hawthorn Drive Banknock, Falkirk