Amidst outrage over a potential “confidence and supply” deal between the Tories and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), critics have pointed out that Labour tried to strike a similar deal in 2010.
Labour under Gordon Brown courted the Ulster party after failing to win a majority of seats in the general election, with the then Northern Ireland Secretary Shawn Woodward having worked on an “economic package” to secure DUP support.
Alastair Campbell is one of a number of Labour figures and MPs who slammed Theresa May for negotiating with the socially conservative party, on Thursday accusing the Prime Minister of making “a sordid, dangerous distasteful deal” which puts peace in Northern Ireland “at risk”.
But emails to Hillary Clinton when she was U.S. secretary of state, released in 2015, show the former New Labour spin doctor sat in a meeting where a deal between Labour and the DUP was proposed.
Other Labour politicians who blasted the prospect of an agreement between the Tories and DUP include former leader Ed Miliband, who described it as a “coalition of chaos”, whilst Yvette Cooper called the deal “dodgy” and “irresponsible”.
The former home secretary’s assertions, which included that a deal would threaten the Northern Ireland peace process, were slapped down on Twitter by Labour MP for Don Valley Caroline Flint, who pointed out the hypocrisy.
ConservativeHome editor Mark Wallace branded Labour’s history of having tried to broker a deal with the Ulster party “awkward”.
Breitbart London Editor in Chief Raheem Kassam said a pact between the Conservative Party and DUP could be a “silver lining for small-c conservative voters” following last week’s shock election results, describing the unionist party’s record as “far closer to conservative philosophy than Britain’s Tories have been for decades”.
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