David Cameron risks forfeiting the support of the Democratic Unionists in the next parliament after the party warned the Tories are in danger of “abusing” the House of Commons in their handling of Scotland.

In a blow to the prime minister, who is hoping to rely on the DUP in a hung parliament to keep him in Downing Street, the party’s leader at Westminster, Nigel Dodds, warned of the dangers of fuelling “nationalist paranoia” in Scotland.

Writing in The Guardian, Dodds said: “The UK not merely needs good and stable government after 7 May, it needs responsible politicians too, whether in office or opposition. At the moment, the current state of the campaign greatly concerns me.”

The intervention by Dodds could complicate the prime minister’s hopes of clinging to office after a YouGov/Sunday Times poll suggested he would need the support of the DUP to remain in No 10. The poll projected that a combination of the Tories (278), Liberal Democrats (30) and the DUP (eight MPs in the last parliament) would create a block of 316 MPs. This would be 10 short of a parliamentary majority but it would be seven seats ahead of a Labour (271), Lib Dem and DUP block on 309 seats. Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have rejected agreeing a deal with the SNP.

In a sign of deep DUP unease at the Tory tactics over Scotland, Dodds is scathing about the commitment in the Tory manifesto to offer English MPs a veto over parliamentary legislation by introducing what is known as English votes for English laws. Dodds, who is defending his north Belfast seat in the election, writes in The Guardian: “The Commons can’t be used as an ersatz, part-time English Assembly. It’s the Union parliament, and abusing it in this way wouldn’t and couldn’t answer the very real needs England has.”



The DUP had decided to keep out of the general election in Great Britain to focus on its fight to defend its eight seats in Northern Ireland. It also has high hopes of recapturing East Belfast, the seat held by its leader, and Northern Ireland first minister, Peter Robinson between 1979-2010.

But the DUP leadership has become increasingly alarmed by the Tory tactics in building up the SNP as a way of damaging the Labour party in Scotland. The tactics reached new heights on Sunday when Theresa May, the home secretary, warned that a post-election deal between Labour and the SNP would pose the gravest constitutional crisis since the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936.

Dodds is highly critical of those who question the legitimacy of SNP MPs at Westminster – as the home secretary did when she told the Mail on Sunday that a Labour / SNP deal would “raise difficult questions about legitimacy”. Echoing the criticism of the former Scotland secretary Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, Dodds wrote: “Take the ‘right’ of SNP MPs to vote in the Commons, or the supposed lack of legitimacy that stems from it. No one who purports to be a unionist can question it. They have the right. That’s why we fought and won the referendum: to enshrine the rights of Scots to go on sending representatives, fully equal to every other, to Westminster. Glib and lazy talk about SNP MPs somehow not being as entitled to vote in every division in the Commons as any other British MP simply fuels nationalist paranoia.” Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, described May’s remarks as hyperbolic.

The final straw, which persuaded the DUP to speak out, came when the Tories suggested they would be prepared to vote against the defence estimates as a way of highlighting how the SNP could pose a threat to Trident under a Labour government. Ben Wallace, a Tory whip, hinted recently that a future Labour government might not be able to rely on the Tories to prevent the SNP from blocking the renewal of Trident. Wallace tweeted that the Tories might not support Labour defence estimates – the vote to guarantee defence spending – after the SNP deputy leader Stewart Hosie said his party would vote against them if they supported Trident.

Dodds writes: “I can’t take seriously the notion that a responsible party of government would vote against the estimates. That has to have been tweetable overexcitedness by press officers and not a signed-off-on-line from on high.”

In a dig at the Tories, Dodds jokes that no party that professes support for the Union would damage the UK by talking up the SNP. Adopting a sarcastic tone, Dodds writes: “Since it would neither be in the interests of the country nor those of any other party to intentionally talk up the SNP, we can assume that this hasn’t been happening. No one committed to the Union would deliberately do that. Obviously while we want a stable and secure government to emerge in the next parliament, no stability can come from any conscious effort to ramp up the numbers of anti-UK MPs in the Commons.”

Dodds calls on Scots to vote tactically for the best placed pro-Union candidate who, in most seats, will be the Labour one. “Since no one ascends to or clings on to office by risking the country, this election calls for something beyond partisanship. In Scotland, pro-union voters should, just this once, give very serious consideration to voting for the unionist best placed to win their seat.”

The DUP insists it still intends to be equidistant between Labour and the Tories if it holds the balance of power in a hung parliament. A DUP source said: “It is going to be the people who will chose the next government. We will just have to play the cards they deal in the election result.”

But the source said of the Tory tactics: “It it is going to give us pause for thought if this continues. We are half-depressed, half-bemused by what has happened. We really don’t think this is the behaviour of a responsible party of government. Scotland in the Union is more important to us than who is in No 10.”

Harriet Harman, the Labour deputy leader, said in response to the Dodds intervention: “All the Tories do is talk about some non-existent deal with the SNP. It’s not true, it isn’t working and it is dangerously divisive for the future of the United Kingdom.



“Ed Miliband has made it clear that there will be no coalition and no truck with an SNP that wants to break up our country.



“In this election it is only Labour standing up for working people in every part of the United Kingdom. Labour will turn things around for working families and keep the country together.”