A deal between British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party and the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party is likely, and “the sooner the better,” the DUP’s chief whip Jeffrey Donaldson said Thursday.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Donaldson said in exchange for agreeing to back the Tory program in government, his party wanted “recognition from the government that after 30 years of a very violent conflict in Northern Ireland when capital resources were spent on security … our infrastructure fell way behind the rest of the United Kingdom.”
Asked whether media reports that the DUP demanded £2 billion in spending on Northern Ireland were correct, Donaldson said the figure was “nonsense.”
“The scale that we’re talking about is nowhere near that that is being talked about in the media,” Donaldson said. “We want to bring Northern Ireland to the same level as the rest of the U.K. We believe in a post-Brexit world, we want the rising tide to lift all the boats.”
Donaldson rejected the idea a Tory-DUP deal would endanger the Good Friday Agreement, which secured peace in Northern Ireland.
“The deal relates to how we operate at Westminster,” he said. “We’re not asking the government to take sides about the devolution debate in Northern Ireland …Â The DUP is committed to the peace process, we’re committed to devolution.”