WHEN Theresa May limped home to Downing Street last week, she placed her hopes for survival in her “friends and allies” in the Democratic Unionist Party. But, if the initial negotiations are anything to go by, her friends may prove no more helpful than her enemies.
Eager to move on, No 10 initially said an agreement had been reached with the Democratic Unionists, only for the DUP to say that no deal had been finalised. It would seem the two sides cannot even agree if there has been an agreement. It is not a good start.
The prospects of a deal helping to stabilise the government are also slim. Political history shows minority governments tend to have short and chaotic lives before collapsing - why should this one be any different? As for actually achieving anything, minority governments have a poor record on that too - and yet Mrs May is proposing to use her minority administration to push through Brexit. With her back benches fractious and angry, and her new DUP partners favouring a soft Brexit, it is hard to see how she can possibly do it.
The fact that the Democratic Unionists support a softer Brexit is one of the few factors in their favour - that they are opposed to welfare cuts and support the retention of the winter fuel allowance and the triple lock on pensions is also a straw to clutch to.
However, the DUP’s anti-austerity stance is small comfort in the face of an arrangement that is inherently unstable and could undermine attempts to restore the power-sharing executive at Stormont. And while the Democratic Unionists’ illiberal social views are highly unlikely to affect policy elsewhere in the UK - the party is much more likely to use its new-found influence to extract extra spending in Northern Ireland - what does it say about this government that it is supported by a party opposed to gay marriage and abortion?
Theresa May may be behaving as if it business as usual, reshuffling her cabinet and bringing back Michael Gove of all people to the Cabinet, but the DUP deal is a guarantee of disaster in the coming months and eventually May’s downfall as Prime Minister: the opposition knows it, Mrs May’s own MPs know it and Boris Johnson knows it, although he is declaring loyalty for now.
The question is whether, when the end comes for Mrs May, the Tory party will understand the bigger picture. Mrs May was certainly one of the major problems in the election campaign, but learning the lessons of the result is not just about the Conservatives changing their leader - it is about changing their policies, particularly on Brexit.
Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, has already called for an “open Brexit” and, with her new band of Scottish Tories in the Commons, the hope is that she can have some influence in that direction. However, a new position on Brexit will also require the Prime Minister to stop behaving as if she won the landslide she thought was inevitable and start demonstrating two qualities which this disastrous new government desperately needs: introspection and humility.
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