Opinion

Alex Kane: Jeremy Corbyn could help save the DUP's Brexit bacon

Alex Kane

Alex Kane

Alex Kane is an Irish News columnist and political commentator and a former director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, pictured left, with shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer as they prepare for this week's meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, pictured left, with shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer as they prepare for this week's meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, pictured left, with shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer as they prepare for this week's meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

IN last week's column I suggested that there was probably nothing Theresa May could now do to win over the remaining rebels in her party, short of "turning herself into a piñata and inviting her enemies to beat her with sticks".

On Tuesday she did just that; not, as it turns out, for her own rebels, most of whom have given up on her, but for Jeremy Corbyn.

Yes, the worst Prime Minister in living memory - maybe even the worst Prime Minister ever - has decided that she'll allow her fate be decided by the worst Leader of the Opposition in living memory.

Last week she offered to resign if the House of Commons backed her policy; this week she turned to the man she has dismissed and derided as useless since he became Labour leader.

Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg fell into her trap; actually they jumped into it.

They wanted rid of her, so they decided to accept her offer and agreed to vote for her Withdrawal Agreement (WA).

Yes, the same WA they had been excoriating for four months. The same backstop-including WA they had assured the DUP they would continue to oppose.

The same WA they came to Belfast - Boris - and Ballymena - Jacob - to rubbish.

The same WA they whinged about in Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and Sun columns.

The same WA they used as the clinching argument to force a motion of no-confidence in her.

And yet as soon as she mentions that she would mosey on down to the Bide-A-Wee Rest Home for Political Disasters if they back it, they jump ship with the abandon of posh pirates and start measuring up the curtains for Number 10.

And how does she repay them for stabbing their own ERG colleagues in the back - front, neck, side and heart as well?

She laughs and feeds them to Corbyn. She had nothing to lose.

They have already shamed themselves as brazen careerists and now she has made them look like Class A numpties. She reeled them in and she rolled them over.

The problem with congenital narcissists is that they are always too preoccupied and obsessed with themselves to realise when they are being played.

If Mrs May ever decides to write her autobiography, at least she'll be able to say of them: "I may well have been the worst Prime Minister in living memory, but I still made Johnson and Rees-Mogg look like duplicitous, up-themselves Baldricks."

Meanwhile, what of the DUP? As I've noted many times before they always play the long, long game.

They give nothing away too early. They don't compromise if they don't need to.

They will wait and wait and keep on waiting. They have done the numbers before each vote and stuck to their guns.

They know that once you've given in, you've nothing left in your armoury.

They'll go all the way down to the wire, almost get their arse on it and then, just when you don't expect it, they'll surprise you; either by pooping all over the wire, or simply, by way of a perfectly executed hop, skip and jump, leap over or away from it.

Nigel Dodds's comment last week about "better to remain" than risk or compromise the Union is classic DUP strategy.

Warm up your base. Assure them that nothing is more important than the Union. Scoff as the likes of Rees-Mogg and Johnson are played as suckers and accuse the PM of being "lamentable" for contracting out Brexit to Corbyn.

But always have your eye on the biggest issue of all: the Union.

The DUP will live with a Customs Union if it applies to the whole UK. They'll live with a soft Brexit. They'll live will the UK not leaving at all.

If the best way of protecting and preserving the UK and the "precious Union" is a Brexit so soft it may as well be a political blancmange, they'll accept it.

OK, it may not keep Sammy and Ian happy, but hourly whiffs of laughing-gas wouldn't keep them happy, either.

So there'll be no real tears from Nigel and Arlene if May and Corbyn manage to agree a soft deal that includes all of the UK and won't lead to Northern Ireland being treated differently.

And most DUP candidates for the May 2 council elections will heave a huge sigh of relief if they don't have to go on the doorstep to explain why a no-deal is actually an example of strong negotiation skills from their Westminster team.

Everything is still in play, of course - and there are very few set-in-stone certainties at the moment - but it looks like the DUP may yet emerge from the chaos in much better shape than they feared a few weeks ago.

And in what may yet be a wonderful irony, it could be Jeremy Corbyn who saves the DUP's bacon.