As in the EU referendum, the DUP are acting as a front to push a harsh Brexit.
Pic (CC): DUP leader Arlene Foster with Theresa May.
When Theresa May first came calling for the Democratic Unionist Party’s support in the wake of her General Election collapse, I’m not quite sure she know what she was letting herself in for.
She happily over-looked the party’s stances of the LGBT+ community, abortion rights, and the age of the earth (yes some of them are young earth creationists) – as she fumbled around in the dark for something resembling a majority.
She even helped to cover up the source of their funding for the Brexit campaign, with a £282,000 advert in the Metro and almost £100,000 worth of campaign merchandise – paid for by secret donors.
Lord Adonis recently spent a few days in Northern Ireland this week, giving a speech at Queen’s University Beflast on the need for a ‘People’s Vote’ on the final terms of the Brexit deal. He argued it was abundantly clear that the DUP were prioritising their constitutional ideology over the wellbeing of the people of Northern Ireland:
After 3 days in Northern Ireland I now understand DUP mindset. They WANT hardest possible Brexit because they want new hard border with Ireland for cultural/political reasons. But essential they can blame UK govt, so they claim publicly not to want ‘hard border.’ Deeply dishonest
— Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) July 21, 2018
They have opposed any form of special arrangement which that would see Northern Ireland deviate from the UK on trading arrangements agreed with the EU.
There is a warped logic to this: any way in which Northern Ireland drifts away from mainland Britain could be seen as a step towards a United Ireland – and some form of customs border in the Irish Sea is another nail in the coffin of Northern Ireland as a part of the UK.
They repeat the mantra that they do not want a hard border in Ireland, or in the Irish Sea – but continue to push for the hardest Brexit possible.
A recent report from UK in a Changing Europe showed the divide between the party and their supporters on this: “Only 1 in 3 of Protestants support a hard Brexit. The party’s policy does not represent their supporters’ preferences.”
So the party is locked in contradiction. It’s goals for a hard Brexit – but no hard border – cannot be achieved simultaneously: if we have a hard Brexit, there must be some form of border.
But why are they backing a slash-and-burn Brexit?
It’s helpful to look at the DUP’s role in the EU referendum. Jeff Sylvester told whistle-blower Christopher Wylie that the DUP were simply being used as a front organisation to allow Vote Leave to go beyond spending caps imposed by the Electoral Commission.
He told Wylie that they were doing this as part of a common spending plan that was “totally illegal“. This is backed by some AggregateIQ (AIQ) software examined by Chris Vickery. In the DUP’s online campaign, he found no data-sets or algorithms with DUP specific labels – just those used for Vote Leave.
BBC Spotlight found that the contact AIQ used from the DUP was Lee Reynolds, a councillor for the DUP. However, at the time Reynolds was acting as the Northern Ireland director for Vote Leave, rather than in his capacity as a DUP representative.
Money was being funnelled from the Constitutional Research Council through the DUP, to branding agency Soopa Doopa and AggregateIQ and into Vote Leave common spending plans – apparently disregarding collaboration laws and circumventing campaign spending caps.
Vote Leave have already been found by the Electoral Commission to have broken the law, and have been referred to the police for prosecution – though there has been little mention of the DUP’s role in this.
They DUP have been savvy: they took money for a cause they already believed in, were able to twist the arm of Theresa May into dismissing the backstop arrangement she already agreed to – and along with Vote Leave figures are now steering us towards a hard border, separating the North with the Republic.
They are willing to sacrifice the well-being of Northern Ireland out of fear of a United Ireland – enabling hard Brexit backers to turn Britain into an off-shore, low regulation tax haven.
Josh Hamilton is Editor of The Jist and Host of Chatter.
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