Rishi Sunak rules out coalition with democratic unionists after the next elections

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

Rishi Sunak has ruled out a coalition with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party after the upcoming general election, closing a potential avenue for the UK’s Conservative prime minister to keep power.

Although currently opinion polls give Work a double-digit lead, some pseudologists have argued that there is a high probability of a hung parliament with no party enjoying a majority after the vote, which must be held by early 2025.

In that case, Sunak he would have few potential allies apart from the right-wing DUP, which won eight seats in the 650-member House of Commons in the 2019 election. The Liberal Democrats have already ruled out any deal with the Conservatives and the Scottish National Party is a sworn enemy of the pro-Conservatives union.

But Sunak, speaking ahead of the G7 summit in Japan, also ruled out a coalition with the DUP, which helped prop up Theresa May’s minority Tory government after an inconclusive 2017 election.

Sunak was asked by the Financial Times on a flight to Japan if he could strike a coalition deal with the DUP if the Conservatives failed to win a majority.

The premier replied: “I was clear and I will be clear, I’m not interested in the coalition”. Asked if he was ruling out a DUP-Conservative deal, he replied: “I am.”

Given Sunak’s strained relationship with the DUP – which has rejected the prime minister’s efforts to rewrite Northern Ireland’s Brexit protocol governing the region’s trade relationship with Britain and the EU – such an agreement could be unlikely in any case.

The DUP’s deal with May also fell short of a full coalition: the Northern Irish party agreed to support May’s government on key budgetary issues and not vote confidence – a so-called confidence and supply deal – in exchange for large amounts of extra public spending for one’s region.

Sunak’s decision to rule out a power-sharing deal with the DUP is partly a reflection of his plan to challenge Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer to rule out a post-election pact with the Lib Dems in a suspended parliament.

Starmer ruled out a deal with the SNP but left open the possibility of a deal with the Lib Dems.

During the 2015 general election the Conservative Party weaponized the idea of ​​a Labour-led coalition, calling it a “coalition of chaos” in a series of attack announcements.

Starmer insists he can win the 120 seats needed to win an outright Labor majority – a huge feat – without relying on a deal with the Lib Dems.

Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, would almost certainly insist on handing over electoral reform as the price for any deal, after the party’s unfortunate experience in coalition with David Cameron’s Tories from 2010-15.

But both sides question whether Sunak could credibly lead a “chaos coalition” attack on Starmer given the recent unrest associated with the one-party Conservative government.

“I’m interested in getting a conservative majority in the next election,” Sunak told reporters on the plane to Tokyo. “But what I focus on the most is not worrying about the election, it’s keeping my five promises.”