WASHINGTON—Remind me never to go to the track with British Prime Minister Theresa May.

She awoke on the day after an election she had called clinging to a window-sash at 10 Downing Street by her fingernails. The election resulted in a rare hung Parliament, when no political party wins more than half of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. That means that, without a majority, May's government will struggle to pass legislation and her Conservative Party will often have to rely on the support of other parties.

Now her nascent government depends on a tenuous alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party, or DUP, which consist of barely reformed sectarian lunatics in Northern Ireland. Somewhere, the ghost of Sir Edward Carson is laughing its ectoplasmic ass off. Welcome to 1912. Let's all argue about Home Rule and conscription again. From The Guardian:

A DUP source said: "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." There has been no decision as yet on whether there will be a formal coalition between the Conservatives and the DUP or if they will operate on a "confidence and supply" arrangement – whereby the unionists would support a minority government on vital matters in return for some of their policies being enacted. It has been reported that the two parties do not believe it necessary to enter a formal coalition to govern. Senior DUP figures claim they moved quickly to form an agreement to stop any chance of Corbyn entering No 10 because of his and John McDonnell's past support for Sinn Féin and the IRA.

Corbyn is the leader of Britain's Labour Party, who's been called the "British Bernie Sanders." He's an open socialist, and someone who in the days leading up to Thursday's election came very close to becoming the UK's new prime minister.

So who are these lovelies with whom May has to make common cause in order to stay as prime minister? The Democratic Unionist Party was founded by the Reverend Ian Paisley, one of the least excusable human beings of the 20th century. It is the fringe of the fringe of the UK right, as Adam Ramsey explains, and it began as the political arm of Protestant paramilitaries in the North. From OpenDemocracy:

Theresa May's new partners in government have strong historical links with Loyalist paramilitary groups. Specifically, the terrorist group Ulster Resistance was founded by a collection of people who went on to be prominent DUP politicians. Peter Robinson, for example, who was DUP leader and Northern Ireland's first minister until last year, was an active member of Ulster Resistance. The group's activities included collaborating with other terrorist groups including the Ulster Volunteer Force, to smuggle arms into the UK, such as RPG rocket launchers. Of course, Northern Ireland has moved towards peace, and the DUP, like their opponents in Sinn Fein, have rescinded violence. As part of that normalisation, the fact that parties which include people who have rescinded violence can be brought into the democratic process is a good thing. But for the Tories to end an election campaign which they spent attacking Corbyn for his alleged links to former Northern Irish terrorists by going into coalition with a party founded by former Northern Irish terrorists would be a deep irony.

They have evolved—if they can be fairly said to have evolved at all—into an all-purpose, one-stop shopping center for extreme wingnut positions.

The DUP also fights hard against women's right to choose to have an abortion, making them the biggest pro-forced pregnancy party in the UK. The results in Northern Ireland are utterly grim for the many women each year who are in need of an abortion. Despite being climate change deniers, they used their role in government in Northern Ireland to set up a subsidy scheme for biofuels, which gave those who bought into it more money than they had to pay out. The Northern Irish exchequer ended up paying out around half a billion pounds to those who knew about the scheme, leading to a scandal known as 'cash for ash', and a major investigation into whether DUP staff and supporters personally benefitted. The DUP have fought to stop equal marriage, making Northern Ireland the only part of this archipelago without equal relationship rights. Last year, DUP MP Sammy Wilson was caught up in a scandal when a member of the public said that Northern Ireland ought to "get the ethnics out", and he appeared to reply "you are absolutely right".

May, of course, put herself in this terrible position by being a truly terrible political operator who got her comeuppance when Labour came roaring up on her in the last weeks of the campaign, and then succeeded well enough in the election to force her to ally herself with the dog's breakfast party in Ulster. It's hard to say that anyone came out of this election looking very well. Labour had a lovely showing, but the immediate consequence seems to be a rise to power of the most retrograde political elements in the UK.

Makes one long for the nuanced appeal of Lord Buckethead.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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