DUP running out of allies in Westminster

An increasingly irrelevant rump

Sir, – We have heard plenty of bluster from the DUP in recent years about its concern to protect “our precious Union”. The love is not reciprocated from “the mainland”.

A 515 to 29 vote in the House of Commons on Wednesday is compelling evidence that MPs in England, Scotland and Wales have had enough of the antics of the DUP and of its fellow travellers on the loonier wing of the Conservative and Unionist Party.

It can surely be only a matter of time before voters in Britain’s post-industrial economic wastelands have their attention drawn to the enormous annual subvention from London which keeps the show on the road in Northern Ireland.

That money would go a long way in Bolton, Blackburn and Burnley.

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And what does it say about the state of UK politics that the increasingly irrelevant rump of 22 Conservative MPs who voted with the DUP included three former leaders of the party, two of whom were prime minister in the last seven months? – Yours, etc,

PAT O’BRIEN,

Rathmines,

Dublin 6.