Image: DUP leader Arlene Foster speaking at their party conference last month. Credit: Michael Cooper/PA Images, all rights reserved.
18 months after it came to the rescue of the Conservative government – securing a confidence and supply deal that promised to ‘deliver for all’ – the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) seems intent on risking a spectacular fall from grace and maximising the misery Brexit will inflict upon communities in Northern Ireland by gambling with the prospect of a no-deal withdrawal from the EU.
The DUP’s penchant for divergence from the best interests of the people it claims to represent is uncanny. In spite of predictions that Northern Ireland would be hit hardest by Brexit, the risks it poses to a fragile peace process, and a majority voting to remain in the 2016 referendum, the DUP’s commitment to leaving the EU never waned.
