Careful what you believe in, and to to paraphrase U2, “She moves in mysterious ways“. This morning this might have seemed like the ideal scenario for the DUP, the parochial party from Northern Ireland now thrust into the big time as the Queen maker. But as the dust is settling, the rest of the UK media sees who Theresa May has allied herself with, a party that (in no particular order) opposes same sex marriage; refuses women the right to have their say over their own bodies; believes that creationism should be taught in schools (despite having press calls at the Giant’s Causeway); thinks that Muslims should only go to the shops for them, and literally have an economic policy where ash means cash. ( so much for the ‘stewardship of the earth’, we’re supposed to demonstrate; they happily skip over that Biblical passage as they line their cronies’ pockets.)
The rest of the UK, will look at this sudden power broker and literally will think “what the flying f**k?” this isn’t anything we voted for. These are not values we believe in, nor the government we wanted.
Northern Ireland has its own set of problems, the United Kingdom as a whole has an entirely new set of problems that didn’t exist yesterday, this is an attempt by an extremely weak Prime Minister, clinging on to that last hope of power for herself, not for the good of the country.
Yesterday the people voted for hope, this pact/deal flies in the face of that.
However, all is not lost. Already the backlash to this has begun, with a Prime Minister who has made the u-turn an art form, this decision is unlikely to last (as is she). To echo back to U2 – Don’t let the bastards grind you down. The whole situation is so absurd that it has to be short-lived, and I for one hope that we have the right leader to pick up the pieces when things fall apart.
