Since the Tories lost their overall Commons majority at the 2017 general election, the 10 DUP MPs at Westminster kept the party in power through a “confidence and supply” voting arrangement. But relations with the Tories were strained after the MPs rejected Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. Asked on the Radio 4 Today programme about the prospects of joining forces with a Labour government if Mr Corbyn was not involved, he added: “It would depend on what their platform was, we’d have to look at that very carefully.”
Sir Jeffrey said MrJohnson’s Brexit deal would “destabilise Northern Ireland’s relationship with the rest of the UK” and be “disadvantageous” to the Northern Ireland economy.
He added: “Clearly there isn’t a single major party in Northern Ireland that supports the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal, and that’s a major problem for us because if this deal is imposed, I believe it will create further instability and we certainly don’t need that.”
He continued: “We believe the Prime Minister needs to look again at this idea of creating a border in the Irish Sea.”
On whether the deal is a threat to peace, Sir Jeffrey said: “I think it is a threat to stability, I don’t think that it’s a threat to peace per se.”
Sir Jeffrey also said: “We’ve stated that we believe a Corbyn-led Labour government would be disastrous for the UK.”
It comes as the Labour party’s proposed ban on companies providing housing for asylum seekers will add 45,000 more people to council house waiting lists, it was claimed last night.
Such a move would see local authorities having to provide the housing – leaving tens of thousands of people waiting longer to get a home.
The UK currently provides Section 95 asylum support to 45,643 people, 42,597 of whom are in dispersed accommodation.
However, serious questions have been raised about who would provide these people with houses if the private provisions were removed.
New analysis by the Conservative Party shows that there are 27 local authorities in the UK where Labour’s policy would mean over 500 asylum seekers needing to be re-housed by the local authority.
The Tories say that if local authorities had to purchase houses to accommodate these asylum seekers, the total cost would be in excess of £2.5 billion.
Some four local authorities in England would see an increase in the housing waiting list of over 10 percent – the average increase for local authorities with more than 100 asylum seekers is 4 percent.
Home Office minister Brandon Lewis said: “This is yet another staggeringly irresponsible move by Corbyn’s Labour that will cause misery for those waiting for social housing by substantially increasing waiting lists overnight.
“The private sector plays a crucial role housing asylum seekers but Labour just don’t understand this.”
