A hung parliament brings opportunity and this is a time of real opportunity for DUP leader Arlene Foster and the DUP. The question is what will she do with that power.
One observer described Foster as now the "second most powerful politician in the United Kingdom". Leaving aside the question of whether Theresa May will be allowed remain as the most powerful British politician such was the disaster of the Westminster election for the Tories, it does seem a reasonable depiction.
The British prime minister pressed the right buttons on Friday when describing how Westminster is about to have its own version of the confidence and supply arrangement that is propping up the Government in the Republic.
After meeting Queen Elizabeth to say she hoped to form a new British government, May spoke about her "friends and allies" in the DUP and about how she led not just the Conservative Party but the "Conservative and Unionist Party".
She spoke about the Tories’ “strong relationship” with the DUP over the years and how she was sure the two parties would “be able to work together in the interests of the whole United Kingdom”. It was music to the unionist ears of Foster.
How political fortunes change. Three months ago she led her party into a disastrous Assembly election, seeing a 10-seat majority reduced to one and its overall advantage over Sinn Féin brought down to fewer than 1,200 votes. In March there were questions over whether Foster could survive as DUP leader, just as there is talk now over whether Theresa May will be permitted to remain at the helm of the Conservative Party.
Border poll
But now the DUP has increased its House of Commons representation by two and is up to 10 seats and it is more than 53,000 votes ahead of Sinn Féin. It undermined, Foster believed, Gerry Adams’s and Sinn Féin’s calls for a Border poll within the next five years.
“Those who want to tear apart the union that we cherish and benefit from so hugely have been sent a clear and resounding message,” she said confidently.
Foster said she spoke with May on Friday morning and that they are to “enter discussions with the Conservatives to explore how it may be possible to bring stability to our nation at this time of great challenge”.
Senior DUP sources were adamant that it has yet to compile or present its shopping list to the British prime minister. But, judging by the DUP manifesto, this will include practical matters such as more funding for health, education and infrastructure, jobs promotion, reducing corporation tax to 12.5 per cent and more support for tourism.
While a Brexit party, it wants maintenance of the Common Travel Area and a "frictionless Border" with the Republic. That should bring some comfort to Dublin and the incoming taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
But manifesto calls for special supports for former British soldiers in Northern Ireland, having greater displays of British symbolism, promoting the Orange Order and Ulster Scots, and staging a special British Armed Forces Day in Northern Ireland stray into more contentious waters.
Such matters would have to be addressed carefully and sensitively.
Bringing forward a statute of limitations so that former soldiers can’t be charged for past killings during the Troubles, as the DUP seeks, also would be particularly incendiary.
Many of these sensitive matters, particularly those relating to how to deal with the past, will be part the negotiations aimed at restoring the Northern Executive and Assembly.
Any move by Theresa May to make concessions to the DUP over and above these negotiations would be divisive. If the DUP had a good election, so did Sinn Féin. It increased its Westminster seats from four to seven.
But notwithstanding that these votes potentially could assist Gerry Adams's friend Jeremy Corbyn form a minority government, the Sinn Féin president was insistent there is no chance of Sinn Féin shifting from its abstentionist policy.
Obliterate the centre
Both Adams and Foster will be delighted that their two parties obliterated the centre ground. The SDLP has lost its three seats, including the symbolic seat of Foyle with all its resonances of John Hume and the civil rights movement, while the Ulster Unionist Party has lost its two seats. The only centre-ground MP left is independent unionist Lady (Sylvia) Hermon in North Down. "Clearly nationalism has turned its back on Westminster seats," Adams was able to say based on nationalist absence from the House of Commons, "the solution [is] being found on an all-Ireland basis".
Nonetheless Adams appeared to implicitly acknowledge that the surge in the DUP vote may have undermined Sinn Féin’s ambition to hold a Border poll on a united Ireland in the next five years. He moderated his timeframe saying: “There is going to be a referendum on Irish unity. We can’t say when it is going to be but there is going to be such a referendum.”
Adams said talks to reinstate Stormont would begin on Monday and that the Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan will be in town to meet some of the parties including Sinn Féin. In the absence of an agreement on a new British government, some DUP sources queried what was the point of holding talks on Monday. The DUP currently is more focused on nailing down that deal with Theresa May, it seems.
However, Arlene Foster and Nigel Dodds said they want the talks to succeed in order to restore devolution. Sinn Féin has publicly said the same. But there is still a chasm between the two parties on issues such as the Irish language, the past, and same-sex marriage. The deadline of June 29th seems hopelessly optimistic.
Adams warned the DUP and Arlene Foster that, notwithstanding the leverage it holds at the moment, “history will show alliances between Ulster unionism and British unionism have always ended in tears . . . they always end up being betrayed in the end” by the British.
It was interesting here that an influential DUP source in a sense accepted that analysis. He said the talks with the Conservatives would be “complex and unpredictable” and that such were the numbers in the new House of Commons that it would be unlikely this next British government would last a full five-year term.
There appeared to be a pragmatic sense that the DUP will take what it can get from the deal, but that if real politics is to continue in Northern Ireland it is better to have it coming from Stormont rather than from direct rule from Westminster.
