Having voted with Labour more than 70 per cent of the time during the present Parliament, the DUP, in the person of Nigel Dodds, chooses The Guardian in which to set out three red lines that are, as of course he knows, three existing Labour Party policies.
He even phrases them all explicitly in the terms used by the Labour front bench. That is not an accident. And remember that while UKIP (which it feels curious still to bother mentioning) and the Conservative Party are both fielding candidates against the DUP's sitting MPs, Labour is not:
If neither David Cameron nor Ed Miliband deliver enough votes in the coming election to be able to form a single-party government, what would the Democratic Unionists want?
We want what we believe every other party sincerely wants – what’s best for the UK. And that’s exactly how we’ll behave should the polls be right and there’s a hung parliament.
But what will that mean in practice for the Democratic Unionist MPs elected to Westminster after the next election?
Simply put: we won’t repeat the mistakes made by the Liberal Democrats. This is not about power for us, it’s about what’s good for the country.
So in advance of the next election we want very straightforwardly to say what sort of programme for government we’d be most comfortable supporting.
We don’t want either our own voters or the leaders of the national parties to be in any doubt.
Nor do we want to encourage a culture of backroom deals being cut only after people have voted.
A continental culture of governments only being formed after elections, when the voters can “safely” be ignored, is not something we want to help foster.
But before we get to what we want, let’s think about how we got here. Why might there be another hung parliament?
It’s hard not to believe it’s because both the Labour and Tory parties have for too long neglected and, in some cases, even insulted their core support.
Democratic parties need to accept that they have no divine entitlement to be voted for. Things change.
Things appear to be changing quite dramatically if the polls are right. It’s the job of leaders to listen and understand why.
Let’s be in no doubt: stable, one-party national government on the Westminster model historically compares extremely favourably with other traditions elsewhere in the free world.
It’s a pity if the two – current – main parties can’t make themselves attractive enough to most voters, but it explains where we are.
I can’t claim the generation-long consensus between the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems over Northern Ireland has served the province well. But I acknowledge it exists.
However, in the context of a hung parliament, it’s irrelevant.
While we, naturally, will always want the economic and social interests of the people of Northern Ireland as a whole protected, politically we would not seek to exploit for narrow and selfish reasons any leverage at Westminster over devolved matters.
That’s why we have Stormont and the power-sharing executive, to which we’re committed.
The Stormont House talks demonstrated once more that whatever turbulence parties like Sinn Féin might attempt to introduce with their threats to upend the process, we’re determined to make devolution and power-sharing work.
So what sort of programme for government would the DUP want to back in the next parliament?
Let me sketch out three issues any government we backed in the lobbies would need to give priority to. These are key national priorities on defence, social justice and protecting the UK’s borders.
On defence, the next government has to accept that we live in a world where committing to spending 2% of GDP on it is a bare minimum.
To that end, the next government should complete, equip, deploy and defend (not least by commissioning sufficient escorts) the two Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers as a centrepiece of keeping Britain safe and enabling us to better protect our friends and those in need of our help.
On social justice, we think Westminster can learn from what we did at Stormont over the bedroom tax.
Despite the need – agreed across the political spectrum – to reduce public expenditure, we were determined that this failed policy should not be extended to Northern Ireland.
It is time in the next parliament that the inhumane and ineffective consequences of the bedroom tax are revisited in the rest of the UK.
Finally, our borders need protecting too.
EU membership can be asymmetric. As the woes of the euro demonstrate, in monetary policy the EU recognises the reality of radically different approaches by member states.
This diversity should include a formal, treaty-based recognition that countries like the UK that wish to should be able to better protect their borders.
Free movement of labour does not have to entail free access to benefits paid for by other countries’ taxpayers.
We would expect any government we’re called upon to sustain in the Commons to promptly and comprehensively tackle UK border integrity.
And the urgency in this matter stems not least from our need to keep ourselves safe from terrorism sourced and inspired from abroad.
We are neither looking to exploit any position of advantage for limited party ends, nor do we merely wish to present a shopping list of desirable goodies funded by a depleted and hard-pressed Treasury.
Our goal at Westminster as a unionist party is to see the entire union prosper.
The proposals I outline would put the interests of the union as a whole first, should neither the Conservatives nor Labour manage to form a government on their own.
He even phrases them all explicitly in the terms used by the Labour front bench. That is not an accident. And remember that while UKIP (which it feels curious still to bother mentioning) and the Conservative Party are both fielding candidates against the DUP's sitting MPs, Labour is not:
If neither David Cameron nor Ed Miliband deliver enough votes in the coming election to be able to form a single-party government, what would the Democratic Unionists want?
We want what we believe every other party sincerely wants – what’s best for the UK. And that’s exactly how we’ll behave should the polls be right and there’s a hung parliament.
But what will that mean in practice for the Democratic Unionist MPs elected to Westminster after the next election?
Simply put: we won’t repeat the mistakes made by the Liberal Democrats. This is not about power for us, it’s about what’s good for the country.
So in advance of the next election we want very straightforwardly to say what sort of programme for government we’d be most comfortable supporting.
We don’t want either our own voters or the leaders of the national parties to be in any doubt.
Nor do we want to encourage a culture of backroom deals being cut only after people have voted.
A continental culture of governments only being formed after elections, when the voters can “safely” be ignored, is not something we want to help foster.
But before we get to what we want, let’s think about how we got here. Why might there be another hung parliament?
It’s hard not to believe it’s because both the Labour and Tory parties have for too long neglected and, in some cases, even insulted their core support.
Democratic parties need to accept that they have no divine entitlement to be voted for. Things change.
Things appear to be changing quite dramatically if the polls are right. It’s the job of leaders to listen and understand why.
Let’s be in no doubt: stable, one-party national government on the Westminster model historically compares extremely favourably with other traditions elsewhere in the free world.
It’s a pity if the two – current – main parties can’t make themselves attractive enough to most voters, but it explains where we are.
I can’t claim the generation-long consensus between the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems over Northern Ireland has served the province well. But I acknowledge it exists.
However, in the context of a hung parliament, it’s irrelevant.
While we, naturally, will always want the economic and social interests of the people of Northern Ireland as a whole protected, politically we would not seek to exploit for narrow and selfish reasons any leverage at Westminster over devolved matters.
That’s why we have Stormont and the power-sharing executive, to which we’re committed.
The Stormont House talks demonstrated once more that whatever turbulence parties like Sinn Féin might attempt to introduce with their threats to upend the process, we’re determined to make devolution and power-sharing work.
So what sort of programme for government would the DUP want to back in the next parliament?
Let me sketch out three issues any government we backed in the lobbies would need to give priority to. These are key national priorities on defence, social justice and protecting the UK’s borders.
On defence, the next government has to accept that we live in a world where committing to spending 2% of GDP on it is a bare minimum.
To that end, the next government should complete, equip, deploy and defend (not least by commissioning sufficient escorts) the two Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers as a centrepiece of keeping Britain safe and enabling us to better protect our friends and those in need of our help.
On social justice, we think Westminster can learn from what we did at Stormont over the bedroom tax.
Despite the need – agreed across the political spectrum – to reduce public expenditure, we were determined that this failed policy should not be extended to Northern Ireland.
It is time in the next parliament that the inhumane and ineffective consequences of the bedroom tax are revisited in the rest of the UK.
Finally, our borders need protecting too.
EU membership can be asymmetric. As the woes of the euro demonstrate, in monetary policy the EU recognises the reality of radically different approaches by member states.
This diversity should include a formal, treaty-based recognition that countries like the UK that wish to should be able to better protect their borders.
Free movement of labour does not have to entail free access to benefits paid for by other countries’ taxpayers.
We would expect any government we’re called upon to sustain in the Commons to promptly and comprehensively tackle UK border integrity.
And the urgency in this matter stems not least from our need to keep ourselves safe from terrorism sourced and inspired from abroad.
We are neither looking to exploit any position of advantage for limited party ends, nor do we merely wish to present a shopping list of desirable goodies funded by a depleted and hard-pressed Treasury.
Our goal at Westminster as a unionist party is to see the entire union prosper.
The proposals I outline would put the interests of the union as a whole first, should neither the Conservatives nor Labour manage to form a government on their own.
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