In U.K., May faces growing tension over Northern Ireland’s fate

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As British Prime Minister Theresa May tries to cobble together a minority government with a small party from Northern Ireland, she faces growing tensions over how their alliance will impact Brexit and the future of Northern Ireland.

On Tuesday, Ms. May met Arlene Foster, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, to try and forge a working agreement that would keep Ms. May's Conservatives in power. The DUP, which is Northern Ireland's largest unionist party, won 10 seats in last week's election, enough to give the Conservatives a slim majority in the House of Commons.

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The election results have put the DUP in an extraordinary position and Ms. Foster is believed to be insisting on more money for Northern Ireland as well as a change in Ms. May's approach to Brexit. The DUP supports Britain leaving the European Union, but it disagrees with Ms. May's hard Brexit stance, which involves pulling the country out of the European Union's single market, allows for the free flow of goods, services and people, and negotiating a trade deal. The DUP wants a softer Brexit including remaining in the single market.

"Discussions are going well with the government and we hope soon to be able to bring this work to a successful conclusion," Ms. Foster said in a tweet after the meeting. Ms. May didn't comment on the talks.

Ms. May has come under increasing pressure to soften her Brexit strategy from some of her own MPs and business leaders who are worried about the country leaving the single market. Brexit negotiations with the EU were supposed to begin on Monday but they are expected to be delayed as Ms. May struggles to form a government. While EU leaders have said they will hold off on the negotiations until Britain is ready, they have insisted on sticking to the two-year deadline for the talks to conclude.

However, on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron indicated that Britain could still change its mind and remain in the EU. "The door remains open, always open until the Brexit negotiations come to an end," he said after a meeting with Ms. May in Paris. "Until the negotiations come to an end, of course there is always the possibility to reopen the door. But let us be clear …once the negotiations have started, we should be well aware that it'll be more difficult to move backward." Ms. May has insisted since last week's election that she will carry through with Brexit.

Any deal between the DUP and the Tories is fraught with challenges for Ms. May on many levels. Along with potentially upsetting hard-line Brexit backers in the Conservative party, the alliance threatens the future of Northern Ireland. Tensions there have already been heightened by the recent collapse of a power-sharing agreement between the DUP and its main rival, the pro-republican Sinn Fein. Those two parties have been on opposite sides of the unity debate in Northern Ireland for decades. The DUP was founded by the controversial Presbyterian preacher Ian Paisley in the 1970s as a largely Protestant party that backs Northern Ireland remaining in the U.K. Sinn Fein emerged out of the Irish Republican Army and it advocates union with Ireland. Under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended the so-called troubles, both parties are supposed to share power in the provincial legislature. But that agreement broke down in January and no government has been formed despite off and on negotiations.

Sinn Fein won seats in last week's vote, an increase of three from the last election in 2015. There had been speculation that the party would end its century-long boycott of the British Parliament and take up its seats in the House of Commons in order to join other parties in trying to vote down the DUP-Tory coalition. But on Tuesday, Sinn Fein MPs said they would continue to refuse to take their seats in the House of Commons. However, they want a say over any part of the DUP-Tory deal that impacts Northern Ireland's affairs and they want the British government to call a referendum on Irish unity as soon as possible.

The Conservative government "cannot, through a Tory-DUP deal, impose its will on the people of the North given the Good Friday agreement," said Pearse Doherty, a Sinn Fein member of the Irish assembly. "We're very concerned in relation to the type of deal that will emerge from this."

He added that the Sinn Fein delegation pressed the government on Tuesday to call a referendum. "We believe Irish unity is inevitable," he said. "We want to plan that Irish unity and that type of reunification." The Sinn Fein delegation hope to meet members of the Labour Party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who has said he wants to defeat the May government as soon as possible. Mr. Corbyn is believed to be sympathetic to holding a referendum on Irish unity.

Sinn Fein is convinced it could win a referendum because of concerns in Northern Ireland about Brexit. Economists and business leaders worry that Britain's departure from the European Union could lead to the return of a border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The border was eliminated as part of the Good Friday Agreement. Business leaders say any return of the frontier would damage businesses on both sides. A majority of people in Northern Ireland also voted to remain in the EU in last year's Brexit referendum. However, polls in Northern Ireland have not shown strong support for unification.

Former British prime minister John Major, a Conservative who helped negotiate the Good Friday Agreement, has raised concerns about the DUP and Tories aligning, saying it could make the Conservative government less able to broker peace between both sides in Northern Ireland.

"The last thing anybody wishes to see is one or other of the communities so aggrieved that the hard men, who are still there lurking in the corners of the community, decide that they wish to return to some form of violence," Mr. Major said Tuesday. "We really need to do everything we conceivably can to make sure that doesn't happen. And that does require an impartial U.K. government."