Who is the DUP? A brief history of UK parliament’s new kingmaker
RT.com
9 Jun, 2017
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) holds the key to Theresa May remaining in Downing Street but what do we know about this Protestant party drawn from the pro-union side of Northern Ireland’s deeply sectarian political spectrum?
As Britons scramble to learn about the party that will prop up May’s mandate to execute Brexit, a swathe of the online conversation has focused on the party’s past comments on homophobia, Islam and creationism.
The DUP was at the center of a bloody sectarian divide during Northern Ireland’s Troubles – a conflict involving rival paramilitary groups and the British Army which claimed more than 3,000 lives over 30 years.
The Conservatives and the DUP won’t form a formal coalition government but the latter will support the government regardless.
“We want there to be a government. We have worked well with May. The alternative is intolerable. For as long as Corbyn leads Labour, we will ensure there’s a Tory PM,” a DUP source was cited as saying in by the Guardian.
The party is the creation of firebrand Protestant Evangelical Minister Ian Paisley. Reverend Paisley also founded the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and was characterized by his entrenched Unionist views and his hostile opposition to the Catholic Church.
In its early years, the party was heavily involved in a campaign against homosexuality and fiercely opposed gay rights.
Paisley, who was famed for his extraordinarily fiery speeches, routinely preached against homosexuality and the party picketed gay rights events as part of their ‘Save Ulster from Sodomy’ campaign.
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