Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party may be British Prime Minister Theresa May’s only chance for staying in power, an alarming prospect for voters and politicians wary of its incendiary views and virulent past.
The self-styled “Christian fundamentalist” party has softened its fiery anti-Catholicism and other harsh stances - it no longer calls for padlocking children’s playgrounds and closing cafes and bars on Sundays.
But the party promotes what critics call puritanical views, particularly on social issues such as abortion and sexual equality.
And even though the DUP’s demands for co-operating with May’s Conservatives in Westminster are not yet known, it could prop up her government to warn of a disrupted balance of power in Belfast.
And in mainland Britain, protests have erupted over its opposition to gay marriage and abortion, the support of many senior members for teaching creationism, and a history of links to paramilitaries who fought Catholic nationalists during the decades of inter-community violence in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.
The DUP has blocked same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland’s assembly five times in recent years, with senior members threatening to leave the party if it ever votes in favour.
Jon Tonge, a professor of history at Liverpool University who has written extensively about the DUP, says that while the party has become less dogmatic, it certainly cannot be described as pluralist.
In his 2014 book The DUP: From Protest To Power, Tonge found that 54% of party supporters “would mind a lot” if someone from their family married a person of another religion and 58.4% would not want their child to go to a non-Protestant school.
So it was a surprise to many political commentators in 2005 when the party agreed to enter a power-sharing arrangement with its bitter enemy Sinn Fein, once the political mouthpiece of the Irish Republican Army, which fought an armed campaign for Irish unity over three decades.
Although the Belfast assembly appeared to operate with reasonable cordiality for much of a decade, it collapsed spectacularly in January over Foster’s involvement in a botched renewable heating scheme.
The clash led Sinn Fein to warn of a breakdown in trust, charging the DUP with “arrogance and a lack of respect” for minorities, particularly Irish nationalists.
Foster has condemned political violence, but her party has long been criticised for sharing platforms with paramilitaries and for an apparent willingness to endorse armed resistance against perceived attempts to “sell out Ulster”.
As a result, many voters worry that with the DUP at her side, May will find it harder to negotiate the coming Brexit talks with the EU.
The party has warned against the reintroduction of customs controls on the border with Northern Ireland, which could come if May fulfils her threat to walk away from talks that offer what she calls a “bad deal”.
But it will not want to be seen as a Conservative patsy if the government decides to impose more austerity measures.
