THERESA May might be a “bloody difficult woman,” but the DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson made clear the good folk of Ulster are “no push-over” either.
It might strike some as strange that given the stakes are so high that the Queen’s Speech came and went without the Downing Street fanfare that a deal had finally been struck with the Democratic Unionists to turn a minority government into a majority one thanks to the help of Arlene Foster and her chums.
However, the key moment arrives on Thursday when MPs have to vote on the Queen’s Speech; the slimmed-down programme for government.
What happens if, for whatever reason, the Prime Minister’s charms have not worked on the tough types of the DUP?
Technically, Mrs May could seek to soldier on but in the face of a humiliating rejection of her government prospectus, this would be politically difficult if not impossible to pull off. In the past, such a move would have been regarded as a vote of no confidence in HM Government and an election would follow.
But we now have the Fixed Term Parliament Act and the power to call a snap election now rests with Parliament.
Under the Act there are just two ways to do this; either two thirds of all MPs must vote for one or the Government must lose a vote of confidence and fourteen days must pass without the successful creation of a new one.
Yet what happens if Mrs May, having not secured a deal with Ms Foster, loses next Thursday’s vote and jumps or, more likely, is pushed? The Tories might think they could stumble on with a new leader, who just might be able to cobble together a quick deal with the DUP.
Labour would undoubtedly table a no confidence motion; their tails are up and they believe they would win a second snap election, putting Jeremy Corbyn in No 10; with a majority.
If the Speaker, the three deputy Speakers[still to be elected] and Sinn Fein’s seven MPs are taken out of the parliamentary arithmetic, the Tories have 316 votes to the 323 of the opposing parties.
But with the support of the DUP’s 10 MPs, the Tories would have 326 and the opposing parties 313; a working majority of 13.
But this would be a fraught situation with the Tory Government surviving day by day and week by week.
In the absence of a Con-DUP deal, if Labour did not table a vote of no confidence to spark a fresh election but instead demanded, in the absence of a workable Tory government, to try to form its own minority administration, then there would be another Queen’s Speech but this time with Mr Corbyn as prime minister.
Yet he would not have the Commons numbers and the likelihood is the DUP would rather go to the country again than see the Labour leader welcoming the likes of Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams into Downing Street.
Given neither the Conservatives nor the DUP want another election, the political logic, therefore, points to an eleventh-hour deal being agreed before next week’s Commons vote so that Ms Foster and her brinkman colleagues can have their moment of glory in the No 10 spotlight.
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