UK: May secures minority government with DUP deal

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON (AA) – The Conservative Party and Northern Ireland’s largest political party the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Monday have reached an agreement that will make possible for Prime Minister Theresa May to continue to lead the country with a minority government.

The "confidence and supply" deal was signed after final talks between Theresa May and DUP leader Arlene Foster Monday morning, following two weeks of negotiations after the June 8 snap election that saw May losing the parliamentary majority.

The Conservative Party had turned to Northern Irish unionists who managed to remain the biggest party locally after winning 10 Westminster seats.

May had announced the snap election to extend her mandate for a “strong and stable” government before the start of Brexit negotiations. The official talks with the EU started last week.

Prime Minister May has described the deal as a “confidence and supply” deal -- an agreement to support her minority government in key parliament votes, including a vote of confidence on the new government’s strategies, which were laid out last week in the Queen’s Speech.

Sinn Fein, Northern Ireland’s second biggest party, has said a deal between the central Westminster government and the DUP would breach the local government’s impartiality as stated in the 1998 Belfast Agreement, which largely ended decades of violence and terror between pro-British Protestant unionists and Irish Catholics who seek a unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland.