Under pressure to soften Brexit, May meets Northern Irish ‘kingmakers’

British Prime Minister Theresa May sought to strike a deal with a Northern Irish Protestant party to save her premiership on Tuesday as she came under intense pressure to soften her approach to Brexit days before formal EU divorce talks. May’s botched election gamble, which saw her lose her parliamentary majority, left her so weakened that supporters of closer ties with the EU publicly demanded she take a more consensual and business friendly approach to Brexit. In an attempt to avoid a second election that could deepen the worst political turmoil in Britain since last June’s shock vote to leave the EU, May apologised to her Conservative Party’s lawmakers, who said they would leave her in power - for now. “She said: ‘I’m the person who got us into this mess and I’m the one who is going to get us out of it’,” said one Conservative lawmaker who attended Monday’s meeting. “She said she will serve us as long as we want her.” To stay in government, May must strike a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a small eurosceptic Northern Irish party with 10 parliamentary seats. DUP leader Arlene Foster arrived for talks with May. She waved but did not say anything as she went into Downing Street. “The deal will be done,” said Jon Tonge, professor of politics at Liverpool University. “Basically it will be Theresa May signing cheques for the foreseeable future or a monthly direct debit, as it were, into Northern Ireland’s coffers.” “The DUP may never have the political arithmetic so favourable again so like the Conservatives, the DUP will want to avoid another election and will want to keep drinking in the political free bar that is available to it,” Tonge said. But a deal with the DUP would risk destabilising the political balance in Northern Ireland by increasing the influence of pro-British unionists who have struggled for years with Irish Catholic nationalists who want Northern Ireland to join a united Ireland. While the DUP are deeply eurosceptic, they have backed at some of the practical implications of a so-call hard Brexit, including a potential loss of a “frictionless border” with the Republic of Ireland, and talks will touch on efforts to minimise the potential damage to Northern Ireland. With formal EU divorce talks due next week, May heads to France on Tuesday to meet Emmanuel Macron, who last month swept to victory in the presidential election.