Belfast - Northern Ireland's Democratic
Unionist Party (DUP) said they would be willing to negotiate
with Prime Minister Theresa May to help her form a government as
it saw its vote surge at elections to Britain's parliament.
May's Conservatives will fail to win a majority, according
to an exit poll, meaning the like-minded DUP, set to gain two
seats to win 10 of Northern Ireland's total of 18, could
potentially play a key role in a future government.
The influence which Britain's smallest province may have
after the election was reinforced by the Irish nationalist Sinn
Fein party's pledge to maintain its policy of not taking its
seats, a position that will cut the numbers needed to win a
majority.
Sinn Fein was on course to win as many as 7 of the remaining
seats, up from 4 in 2015. That would mean the winning party
would need 323 seats for a majority, rather than 326. The exit
poll suggested May's Conservatives would win 314 seats.
"This is perfect territory for the DUP obviously because if
the Conservatives are just short of an overall majority, it puts
us in a very, very strong negotiating position and it is one we
would take up with relish," DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson told BBC
television.
"We will be serious players if there is a hung parliament.
We will talk to whoever is the largest party, it looks like the
Conservatives. We have a lot in common, we want to see Brexit
work, we want to see the Union strengthened. I think there is a
lot of common ground."
Donaldson suggested that the DUP could support a
Conservative government on a vote by vote basis. The party's
leader, Arlene Foster, said they would have to have very serious
discussions if the exit poll was borne out.
Political leaders in Northern Ireland had cast the election
as a referendum on whether voters want to be part of the United
Kingdom or neighbouring Ireland after Brexit and a nationalist
surge at regional elections in March raised the stakes in the
long and divisive dispute over the province's status.
The outcome allowed for interpretations either way and with
Sinn Fein and the DUP deadlocked in talks to restore the
province's devolved assembly, others suggested the latest
election would only serve to complicate those negotiations.
"It's very difficult to see how two parties emboldened by
the results this evening will be any more conciliatory when it
comes to re-establishing the devolved institutions," Naomi Long,
leader of the non-sectarian Alliance Party, who like all smaller
parties failed to win a seat, told the BBC.