May waives the rules to govern Britain

Arrangement with DUP institutionalises an unequal UK with dangerous consequences in Northern Ireland

British Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservative minority government have secured the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) for a confidence and supply arrangement to push through legislation in the new session of the United Kingdom parliament at Westminster. After more than two weeks of haggling with the ultra-conservative party from Northern Ireland, May can now forward, tentatively, on a greatly diluted programme to govern.

But what of the price paid by May to continue to work from 10 Downing Street? In financial terms, the concessions extracted by the DUP negotiators amount to approximately £1 billion (Dh4.2 billion). Those who visit Northern Ireland hospitals will get better service; those who drive the province’s roads will see better infrastructure; and those who rely on benefits and subsidies to survive will have a few more pennies each week to spend on the bare necessities of life.

For those nationalists who advocate a progressive social agenda or seek in the future to re-unite the British-governed province with the Republic of Ireland in the south, the DUP-Conservative deal represents a serious political impediment, one that could potentially lead to a return to violence by men who were convinced to stop three decades of bloodshed by the honest brokerage of the governments in London and Dublin. For the price of political expediency, May has reset the conditions where peace in the province is no longer a given.

This deal tells the sick in England, Scotland and Wales that their health service is not equal; that Ulster’s potholes and puddles are more worthy of filling. It’s a reminder to all that the Conservative manifesto should have been nominated for the Booker Prize in fiction.