In my recent book on Irish reunification, I predicted the metro mayors that have just taken up their roles in many of our major English conurbations will increasingly outweigh the claims of Northern Ireland when it comes to winning the ear of the UK Treasury on public spending issues.

The English regions, places like Greater Manchester, Merseyside and the West Midlands, are engines of growth for UK plc, while, in comparison, Northern Ireland’s private sector is effectively the sandwich van outside the studio where they film Game of Thrones.

With just two per cent of the UK’s population and about two and a half per cent of its economy, Northern Ireland is a peripheral concern in strategic economic terms.

I have to confess, I was only half right with my soothsaying. Arlene is still there at the front of the queue.

In my defence, no-one could have predicted how parlous Theresa May’s political position would become. The tight arithmetic of the House of Commons has seen a last hurrah for Ulster’s claim on the Exchequer’s benevolence, with the sharp-elbowed DUP invited to barge to the front of the queue one last time.

The upshot is that the funding package – at least £1 billion of new money (and quite possible a lot more, taking into account the financial ‘flexibility’ agreed in the Stormont House and Fresh start packages) has made the much less generous ‘devo deals’ George Osborne struck with our big English cities seem like small change. In comparison, Liverpool and Sheffield have deals worth £900 million – over 30 years.

The English regions have not taken kindly to British ministers ladling scarce public funds over Northern Ireland at, as they see it, their expense.

Not when Northern Ireland is already the most subsidised part of the UK – with 21 per cent more spent on people here that the UK average.

Labour’s national party chair, Ian Lavery, an MP in the disadvantaged north-east of England, described the deal with the DUP as ‘nothing short of political bribery’.

Figures compiled by the House of Commons Library for Labour show why figures like Lavery are so unhappy.

Northern Ireland is set to receive an extra £244 per person every year of the deal. In contrast, the devolution agreement between the Treasury and the North East provides just £15 per person, per year.

The elected Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, described the Conservative/DUP ‘marriage of convenience’ as ‘wrong, dangerous and desperate.’ His colleague, Steve Rotheram, the powerful new metro mayor for Merseyside, said it was a ‘grubby deal.’

Just down the M62, Greater Manchester’s new metro mayor, Andy Burnham, scolded the Government for finding money to ‘keep itself in power’ by siding with the DUP but not to sort out the 28 buildings in the North West of England with cladding similar to that used at Grenfell Tower.

Former Labour Deputy Prime Minister and champion of English regional development, Lord Prescott, used his column in the Sunday Mirror last week to remind Theresa May that on the election trail she had told a nurse during one of the TV election debates there was no ‘magic money tree’ to fund a pay rise for her.

‘But she was able to shake its branches to deliver £100million for each Democratic Unionist Party MP to buy their support,’ Prescott blasted.

Neither are the Scots and Welsh particularly chuffed. Welsh First Minister, Carwyn Jones, described the deal as ‘a straight bung’ that ‘further weakens the UK’.

Ominously, he added: ‘This is a short-term fix which will have far-reaching and destabilising consequences.’

Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon also weighed in, calling it a ‘grubby, shameless deal’ and the ‘worst kind of pork barrel politics.’

But is this chorus of disapproval not simply provincial jealousy? Are there any real consequences for the DUP and Northern Ireland in the longer term?

It matters in as much as the special treatment makes Northern Ireland appear, even more than usual, a place apart.

We are only a few years away from a border poll on Northern Ireland’s future and the iniquity of the DUP’s deal creates a powerful new argument that suggests Northern Ireland’s departure from the Union will be good news, particularly for the north of England.

To put it another way, does Arlene Foster think the provincial leaders of England will help her make an argument about why Northern Ireland should remain in the Union when the time comes?

I wouldn’t bet on it.

In exploiting a short term tactical advantage at the expense of the English regions, Arlene and the DUP may have created long-term political opponents.

 

Kevin Meagher is author of ‘A United Ireland: Why unification is inevitable and how it will come about,’ published by Biteback