Conservatives are manoeuvring themselves into a four party deal that could see David Cameron remaining as Prime Minister even if he loses the election. According to sources at Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, senior Conservatives are trying to keep a formal deal with the Liberal Democrats but bring in UKIP and the DUP in a ‘confidence and supply’ deal.
The polls are currently showing Labour and Conservatives are necked and neck on around 32 percent, with the Liberal Democrats on 8 percent and UKIP on 15. Because of the size of seats, Labour need far fewer votes to win the election, so on current polling they would be a larger party. However, no party is likely to get an overall majority so a coalition deal will have to be done.
Under the terms of the deal Liberal Democrats and Conservatives would remain as ministers, whilst UKIP and the DUP would vote for the government in confidence motions. They would then negotiate on every piece of legislation, giving significant power to the two parties in the House of Commons.
Officially both the DUP and UKIP will do a deal with whomever offers them the best deal. In reality the DUP admit they expect this to be the Conservatives, which is so firmly in favour of retention of Northern Ireland that it’s official title is “the Conservative and Unionist Party”.
UKIP have also stated they would do a deal with either Labour or the Conservatives, but they also privately admit Miliband is unlikely to offer them an in/out referendum on the EU. This would make a deal almost impossible.
On Sunday Kevin Maguire exposed information on the deal between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives in the Mirror. He said: “Behind the public wars and play fights I’ve learned that David Cameron and Nick Clegg are plotting to stitch-up Ed Miliband.”
A DUP source told Breitbart London: “There is no doubt that the plan is to put the four parties together. We won’t rule anything in or out, the SNP were fools to do that. The DUP will do whatever is best for Northern Ireland, but we all know which party will offer the better deal.
“We don’t want ministerial seats, we are too small at the House of Commons to make that work.”
Although UKIP MPs will be reluctant to do a deal with the Conservatives they will want to ensure a referendum in the next parliament. Cameron will now need to bank on some Liberal Democrats surviving the widely predicted electoral meltdown.
The DUP are expected to win eight seats, UKIP are harder to predict but most pundits believe they will get between five and ten seats. The leader of the DUP, Nigel Dodds, has already confirmed he will not join a full coalition involving ministerial posts.
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