Why wouldn’t a new Tory leader simply accept the existing pact with the DUP?
What is your problem with “ouster”? It’s a perfectly good English word with French origins. And while it did originally mean wrongful dispossession (with respect to land holding), its current use to describe removing someone from office is not exactly new.
Because the word that should be used is ‘ousting’.
Because the DUP is kind of poisonous both for its origins and stance during the Troubles and its hardcore religious based social conservatism. A new PM may not be as desperate as May to accept such a partner.
But a new PM will only be putting up with them before calling a new election.
So why take on the stain of DUP partnership just before an election? Might as well yank the bandaid.
So what happens if there is no Tory DUP deal?
Squeaky-bum time.
They either find another partner or lead as minority government. In Canada, two of the most recent four governments were minority ones. You have to tip toe around big issues (which would be hard to do right now in the UK) but as long as the other parties don’t want an election, it can chug along.
As the largest party the Tories could form a government without any pact meant to add up the requisite majority, and trust themselves to the mercy of the opposing parties on any voting issue.
Good clean fun.
It’s as much a question as whether the DUP would work with the new leader. It’s going to be a factor in the choice of leader, which is pretty humiliating for the party. I didn’t think a (post Thatcher) PM could make a worse hash of the timing of an election than Gordon Brown, who hung on until the bitter end.
I’m not sure anyone wants the leadership; it’s just a world of pain.
We may even get to the point where there is a vote of Confidence, and Theresa May begs the DUP to not support her.
Whichever way it happens, this Parliament is doomed - and you’d be a complete fool to want to lead it in this state.
Seems pretty desperate to take the reputational damage of an unholy alliance with the DUP for such a short-term advantage. And I suspect Labour and Corbyn will only grow in popularity.
So who should she have joined?
The Lib Dems? They would have to be convinced to be put into Government at the point of a gun, after what happened in 2015?
The Scottish Nationalists? After the Tories have spent the last few years claiming that they and anyone else who wants to work with them are traitorous Britain-hating bastards? And undercut Scottish Conservatives years-long efforts to return to relevance, which has succeeded literally the same day?
Sinn Fein? Seriously?
Its either the DUP or try and overturn the First Peel ministry’s precedent.
So given the choice of a shit sandwich and going hungry, you’re on the shit sandwich side of the aisle?
I would say the DUP is the going hungry part.
**“You’re a better man than I am, Corbyn Din.”
**
Actually, one of the delights is that modernists for feminist reasons, and Conservatives for Nanny reasons always wildly hype the strength and masterful power of female leaders, rolling around like a bitch’s squeaky dog-toys submissively and obediently.
Until the shit hits the fan.
Well you’re wrong. Minority government is the going hungry, DUP is the shit sandwich.
I’m sure she mulled things over with her trusted advisers, called her closest political friends, and made a sober and responsible decision to ally with a bunch of young-earth-creationist homophobes. Her political nous is, after all, legendary.
The Sunday papers are being brutal.
This twitter account is posting the front pages as they appear (she works for the BBC, one of a loose team that takes turns posting the front pages when they get them)