Theresa May stood accused of hypocrisy and putting herself in hock to extremists last night as a result of her plan to form a government with the support of MPs from Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

The DUP are characterised by opponents as climate deniers, gay haters and anti-abortionists. But in fairness, that is pretty much how they present themselves.

Former first minister and DUP leader Peter Robinson once defended his wife after she made homophobic comments. “It wasn’t Iris Robinson who determined that homosexuality was an abomination, it was The Almighty," he said.

His wife was also involved in a scandal in 2010 when she obtained £50,000 for her lover Kirk McCambley who was then 19, in a bid to help him buy a cafe.

Mrs Robinson, herself a former MP, once told a Westminster committee "there can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children.” Her comments were investigated by the police under incitement to hatred laws, but she escaped prosecution.

DUP member of the legislative assembly Edwin Poots is a 'young earth' creationist who believes the earth began just 4,000 years ago. As a former health minister he banned blood donations from gay people and fought attempts to bring Northern Ireland's law on adoption by LGBT couples into line with the rest of the UK.

In 2015 another DUP health minister Jim Wells was forced to apologise for comments suggesting children raised in LGBT households were liable to be abused: "The facts show that certainly you don't bring a child up in a homosexual relationship ... that child is far more likely to be abused or neglected," he said.

It remains to be seen how liberal Tories - not least Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson - will be able to work with such figures. Soon after May announced her plans to form a Government yesterday, Ms Davidson tweeted a far-from-subtle coded message, highlighting a speech she gave at Belfast Pride a year ago, calling for tolerance and for LGBT people in Northern Ireland to have the same rights as "everybody else".

Equally damaging for Mrs May, given the attacks made on Jeremy Corbyn in the run up to Thursday's poll, the DUP's links to loyalist terrorism have caused consternation and allegations of hypocrisy.

While outwardly rejecting extremism, DUP candidates are frequently backing by extreme loyalist groups. Three decades ago DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds, attended the funeral of UVF commander, John Bingham in 1986 while just a week ago Foster was criticised for meeting UDA boss Jackie McDonald, just 48 hours after the loyalist group was accused of killing a father in front of his three year old son as part of a feud.

The DUP leader Arlene Foster was also badly tainted by the botched RHI renewable energy scheme which is to be the subject of a public inquiry after running up an £480m overspend. She was head of the department which set it up, and failed to react after a whistle-blower revealed flaws in the scheme.