Arlene Foster on the Northern Irish economy, Brexit, and Jeremy Corbyn

Arlene Foster has been the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) since December 2015, and the Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Fermanagh and South Tyrone since 2003.

In this interview, Foster discusses the DUP’s unlikely alliance with the Mrs May’s Conservative Party; why the DUP would not strike a deal with Labour anytime soon, and the British media’s ill-conceived perception of her party.

After the last UK general election, Foster was thrown into the political spotlight after Theresa May entered into a ‘confidence and supply deal’ to prop up the Conservative minority government with her 10 MPs, as the DUP are now the fifth largest party in the House of Commons.

This unlikely partnership has caused a bit of a stir in the British media, not only due to what the DUP stand for, but also thanks to a lack of information about where they have come from.

Foster explains:

‘I think the problem lies in that not much was known about the DUP until the ‘confidence and supply deal’ with the Conservative Party, as we (DUP) are based in Northern Ireland and we also weren’t part of any major debates, unlike Plaid Cymru or the SNP, during the UK general election.