Scottish Tories’ leader says PM May has given

SCOTTISH Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, pictured left, said she has received assurances from the Prime Minister over gay rights should the Tories do a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party. Ms Davidson, who is gay, spoke out after Theresa May outlined a plan to seek a deal with the socially hardline party, which has 10 seats in the Commons, to prop up her minority administration. In an apparent criticism of the plan, Ms Davidson on Friday tweeted a link to a speech she made in favour of marriage equality, with the message: “As a Protestant Unionist about to marry an Irish Catholic, here’s the Amnesty Pride lecture I gave in Belfast.”

Ms Davidson, who became engaged to partner Jen Wilson in May 2016, later told the BBC: “I was fairly straightforward with her [Mrs May] and I told her that there were a number of things that count to me more than the party.

“One of them is country, one of the others is LGBTI rights.

“I asked for a categoric assurance that if any deal or scoping deal was done with the DUP there would be absolutely no rescission of LGBTI rights in the rest of the UK, in Great Britain, and that we would use any influence that we had to advance LGBTI rights in Northern Ireland.

“It’s an issue very close to my heart and one that I wanted categoric assurances from the Prime Minister on, and I received [them].”

Northern Ireland is the only part of the British Isles where same-sex marriage remains outlawed.

The DUP has repeatedly used a controversial Stormont voting mechanism – the petition of concern – to prevent the legalisation of same-sex marriage, despite a majority of MLAs supporting the move at the last vote.

The party has often found itself embroiled in controversy over its stance on gay rights issues.

Founded on the evangelical principles of the late Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church, Northern Ireland’s largest political party has been repeatedly at odds with the region’s LGBT community.

Their differences highlight Northern Ireland’s often stark dichotomy between religious social conservatism and secular progressive liberalism.