DUP, Tory govt and money

[Theworldisfullofidiots]

So the DUP has managed to get a shed load of money for Northern Ireland. A. How can this not affect the political landscape in Northern Ireland and b. How can the Conservative government justify giving more money to an area of the UK that has more spending per head of the population on public services than any other at a time when we are wondering (not if) the schools in our area are going to fall over (for instance close one day per week).

If Corbyn formed a minority government do you think he would work through it without the parties supporting him getting their pound of flesh?
All these parties flouncing and clutching their pearls at the Tories doing a deal with the devil were talking to the same devil two years ago.

I'm not talking about Corbyn. A: that's hyperthetical and b. There was no true evidence of Milliband supposed discussions. (for example express and sun reported, and denounced in other papers).
I'm talking about now. I'm talking about schools that can't afford to open right now whilst money is found for the DUP. So next round of elections do you really think that the DUP are not going to capitalise on this. So you are saying it's OK to use public money to pay for votes, but not ok to use public money to fund education adequately.

The DUP have negotiated extra non-Barnett formula money for Northern Ireland in the same way the SNP does for Scotland

Name one school that can't open right now because of money that hasn't been sent to NI yet.

If the deal wasn't done with the DUP then Corbyn led government would be real and what's more Corbyn would have to have the support of all the minority parties to pass anything - so he would have to bribe at least DUP, SNP, LibDems and Plaid Cymru although possibly not the Greens.

So if the Tories hadn't done the deal with DUP how much more sordid would the Labour Party have to be and how much more would it cost to get all of them on side.

How many schools would Corbyn have to close to pay off the SNP?

So you are saying it's OK to pay £1bn for votes for the simple expediency to get bills through parliament even though the electorates view was that the government should have less seats.
And that in your view the Conservatives are less corrupt than labour would be (despite many MPs being paid by and having shares in private health companies as one example).
Am I right in understanding your view?

If the choice is give in to get bills through or have a never ending run of elections until one party dominates then yes that's reality. I don't think labour would be more corrupt I think they would be corrupt in the same way - just the bill would be bigger.

Labours manifesto costs included bribing students with free tuition retrospectively at £9.5 billion.

Labour MPs are to much in the pocket of unions and I suspect many of them have shares is companies one might look askance at.

Take Margaret Hodge for instance - scourge of tax avoiders - but forgot to mention the money she had in a offshore trust.

The MPs pension fund has shares in Arms, alcohol, tobacco, oil and pharmaceuticals.

The UK along the lines of other countries could go through a period of formal or loose coalitions, so I find the barrage of hostility to the DUP democratically worrying - especially as ‘the will of the people’ has just decided that whether a Tory or Labour administration, BOTH needed the DUP’s 10 votes to effectively govern.

To my knowledge in those other countries with coalitions there is ALWAYS A PRICE for the smaller party support.

In 2015 I remember the SNP Salmond saying on the BBC that the SNP under him would demand “billions” more direct spending for Scotland and a £180 billion of more Westminster borrowing, but how and where that was to be spent I don’t think was mentioned, but he did say something along the lines of he would rewrite Labour’s first budget under Ed Balls.

During the recent election although Labour’s official position in Scotland was ‘unionist’, yet Corbyn did say a week before the election that he would open discussions with the SNP about another independence referendum after the general election, while Sturgeon’s SNP manifesto promised to ‘free up’ £118 billion of public investment for Scotland, with no detail I saw.

So it would seem any Westminster coalition requiring support from ‘nationalist’ MPs representing Northern Ireland, Scotland and (no doubt) Wales, will come at a price.

And based on the fact the SNP and Plaid Cymru say they will only ever support a Labour government, and the DUP would be unlikely to support the current Labour leadership unless see a cash offer they could not refuse – I would suggest £1 billion spent of NI public services will turn out relatively cheap, at a time Brexit negotiations has just started the DUP agrees on, while the SNP does not.

It's interesting that most Tory supporters who have posted about this issue have not been able to put forward any clear argument for the Tory/DUP partnership apart from hyperbolic attack against Jeremy Corbyn.

Meanwhile drawn out negotiation between the Torys and the DUP have left little time for power sharing talks in Northern Ireland.

But what would Jeremy have done?

Labour has now said, as they said in 2010, that they will oppose everything in parliament at a very important time, with additional calls now by the shadow chancellor McDonnell for people to march and ‘rise up’, with the objective to overthrow the government, which appears to be Labour’s ‘alternative’ version of democracy.

But that aside, should the Tory party also be so immature by opposing everything a Labour administration tried to put through parliament, based on the Westminster MP seat math, the CLEAR ARGUMENT for either Labour (with every vote from the SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid Cmyru, the Greens etc MPs) or the Tories - is that both sides NEED the DUP’s votes to pass legislation, or not.

Is anyone democratically saying that the DUP should not vote in this Westminster parliament at all, rather than currently just voting for the key legislation with the Tories in order to government the UK - in case they upset anyone in NI or here?

There was a very good post on this on another thread from @LaMontser

The money is capital money. Last year the capital spend in the U.K. Was about £760/770bn depending on source. This deal is the equivalent on U.K. Having £760 and giving NI 50p a year for two years. There is no revenue tail. It's not the same pot that cuts generally come from- cuts are mostly revenue money because there needs to be a recurrent saving. The NI money won't pay for new nurses - it will pay for infrastructure like buildings. Or waiting list pressures this year.

The ‘power sharing’ talks problem is that the Sinn Fein party have said for months that they do not want to share power with the current head of the DUP, she is still in place, and has secured for Northern Irelands public services, not the DUP party, an extra £1 billion.

So, as reports coming out of their parliament suggests, this transparent agreement the government and DUP that is good for Northern Irish citizens, has not affected those power sharing talks.

As its already churlish for the republican Sinn Fein party not to ever take its seats in Westminster, as I'm guessing that they do not recognise it, would they seriously object to more investment in services via Westminster on old sectarian grounds?

@TheaSaurass churlish?! I really don't know where to begin with that.

FlaviaAlbia re "Churlish".

I have to admit that when I used that word I had ‘a triple take’, but I thought as Sinn Fein wasn’t the current subject of the Westminster N.I. MP objections, why bother correcting it as no one would care too much, as they’d get the point that Sinn Fein has options of their own by sitting in Westminster – but how wrong was I?

Furthermore even if they (Sinn Fein) still refused to recognise Westminster, as representatives of those that voted for them in a UK general election,, they’d understand what is financially good for all the people of N.I. - and not stand in the way on historical grounds, which appears to be the case over there.

You don't get it at all. Maybe some research would help.

FlaviaAlbia

Maybe you are not explaining 'it'.

Do you at least acknowledge that whether a Conservative or Labour administration, the DUP votes in Westminster would be needed to get over the roughly (give or take the Speaker and a few other non voters) 326 seats needed to effectively govern?

Do we agree that the DUP has the right to vote in Westminster at this time, and was free to vote with who they wished, whether key or more mundane legislation on behalf of NI's interests?

I reiterate an earlier point made by both me and cdtaylornats, this is now the second hung parliament in 7-years and internationally there is always a price from the smaller parties whether in a formal coalition, or a Confidence and Supply deal like the DUP one - as clearly Labour with 262 seats was lining up in order to run the UK.

I find it interesting that allocating £1 billion to Northern Ireland for infrastructure etc has raised so many questions, yet Corbyn and McDonnell's manifesto just said that they would use the national credit card to borrow £250 billion - and spray it around the UK for infrastructure etc over this parliament - yet didn't give any detail on HOW it would be spent, or WHERE it would be spent e.g. how much to Northern Ireland.

I'm not sure what that says about UK politics nowadays.