Yesterday the DUP announced that they’d support the Tory Party in Parliament so Theresa May can remain Prime Minister. In order to get the DUP on side, the Tory party have promised them £1,500,000,000,000 (One And A Half Billion Quid!) in cold hard cash to be spent willy-nilly in Northern Ireland. The DUP have 10 MPs, and that is, according to my calculator, £150,000,000 (One Hundred And Fifty Million Quid!) per MP. The magic money tree exists people! It just happens to be growing in Antrim.
And for all the easy jokes Theresa May made about Jeremy Corbyn sympathising with terrorists and being propped by up by minority parties in a coalition of chaos, well, karma’s a bitch, Theresa. But it is also actually a bitch that now, somehow, for actual fuck’s sake, our government is propped up by the DUP. The DUP, if you need a primer, are very right wing, very religious, and not very nice people.
The DUP once campaigned on a platform of “saving Ulster from sodomy.” The DUP’s founder, Dr Ian Paisley, once accused the Queen Mother of fornication and adultery with the Antichrist for having a cup of tea with the Pope. One DUP MP didn’t believe that heterosexual people could get HIV. Dr Ian Paisley believed line-dancing to be sinful.
Led by Arlene Foster, The DUP are anti women’s rights, anti gay rights, anti abortion, and pro teaching creationism in our schools. They don’t believe in climate change. They are supported by Loyalist paramilitary organisations. They are a bunch of socially conservative nutters who have found themselves in power because Theresa May is an inept political campaigner. The DUP being anywhere near government is not a situation we can get behind.
The only way to change the situation is, of course, to make our voices heard. Which is what 1000s did at the weekend. Marching across London, to Downing Street, to protest against the DUP getting their claws into the government. We were there at the weekend, capturing those protesting against our new coalition of chaos. We’ll probably be there next weekend too, and the weekend after that, if that is what it takes.
Credits
Photography Holly Falconer
Text Felix Petty