WHEN David Cameron became prime minister in May 2010, he began with a problem.

He didn’t have an overall majority and required the support of the Liberal Democrats to form a government, in which Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg became his deputy PM.

After the 2015 general election he had another problem. Although he won with a very slim overall majority of just 10, he had promised – and included in the manifesto – a referendum on EU membership and knew that if he didn’t trigger it he would, instead, trigger a new civil war within the party.

When Theresa May became prime minister in 2016 – after Cameron had scuttled for the nearest exit route following his disastrous pro-EU campaign – she had problems.

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She had supported Remain; she had inherited Cameron’s 10-strong parliamentary majority; and the civil war which he had tried to avoid had shifted from brewing to boiling within a few weeks of the Leave victory.

Her efforts to boost her majority in the 2017 general election left her even more hobbled than she had been, requiring the support of the DUP’s 10 MPs.

The problem with the deal she struck with them was that the DUP was much closer to the ERG (Jacob Rees-Mogg and co) and Nigel Farage’s........

© The Irish News