David Cameron is facing pressure over his alliance with the Ulster Unionists after a senior Tory warned that voters will face an "inconsistent" choice and a leading US congressman challenged the Conservative leader to act as an honest broker.
As the Tories pledged to press ahead with their alliance, after the UUP spurned Cameron's advice not to vote against the devolution of policing and criminal justice powers, unease about the pact was expressed on both sides of the Atlantic.
Sir Patrick Cormack, chairman of the all-party Commons Northern Ireland select committee, warned it would be "odd" for the UUP and Tories to stand on the same ticket in the general election after taking different sides.
"It does look odd and it does look inconsistent," Cormack said of the way in which the UUP voted no on Tuesday against the advice of Cameron. "But [the UUP] have got to explain themselves to their electorate. They've got to explain why they did not feel able to follow the advice of David Cameron."
The intervention by Cormack, who was first elected to parliament in 1970 when the Tories still had a formal pact with the UUP, came as a leading US congressman voiced concerns about the alliance. Richie Neal, a Democrat from Massachusetts who is chairman of the Friends of Ireland, raised fears that Cameron may not be able to act as an honest broker in Northern Ireland as prime minister.
"A prime minister, or an opposition leader, needs optimal flexibility in dealing with all the parties," Neal told the Guardian. "Sinn Fein had a long-standing interest in working with Tony Blair. I don't think they would have argued 15 years ago that making an agreement with the British prime minister was a good idea. Over the last decade they came to believe that Blair was an honest broker."
Asked whether Cameron would be an honest broker, Neal said: "My experience tells me that to be an honest broker you have to be precisely that."
Neal, who organised a letter by 21 congressmen to Cameron pleading with him to persuade the UUP to vote yes, was critical of the way in which the Tory leader allowed such a small party to dictate terms. "You can see the movement between the parties in terms of majority status," he said, referring to the prospect of a hung parliament in Britain after the general election.
"My suggestion to any prospective leader would be that you should never allow a weaker ally to negotiate for you."
Cameron is determined to press ahead with his alliance. He wants to offer voters a non-sectarian unionist platform and to make clear that Northern Ireland should feel fully part of the union by having a chance to vote for a party that could form the government.
Cormack, who welcomed the yes vote, offered some support for Cameron by saying it would be wrong to treat Northern Ireland as a different part of the UK. But he said the fate of Tory-UUP alliance lay in the hands of voters who seem inclined to support other parties. "Of course Northern Ireland is different and of course Northern Ireland has a history which is very different from the history of Scotland or the history of Wales," he said.
"But there is nothing inconsistent or incompatible with a party that is active across the UK being active in Northern Ireland."
The Tory leader launched the alliance in a speech to the UUP conference in December 2008 in which he declared that he could never be "neutral" on the union.
He voiced support for the Good Friday agreement but appeared to raise doubts about a declaration by the former Tory Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Brooke, that persuaded Sinn Fein to take part in secret talks with the British government. Brooke declared that Britain had "no selfish strategic or economic interest" in Northern Ireland.
Cameron mocked Brooke as he said it was wrong that voters in Northern Ireland are effectively excluded from taxation and foreign policy. "That's not just in the interests of Northern Ireland – it's in the interests of the United Kingdom," he said. "It's in my own selfish interests, too."
© Guardian