The former US president George Bush has made a direct plea to David Cameron to support the Northern Ireland peace process, amid widespread concern in the US about the Tories' new electoral pact with the Ulster Unionists.
In his most active intervention since leaving the White House, Bush took the rare step of calling the Conservative leader to ask him to use his influence to press his unionist partners to endorse the final stages of the 15-year search for a settlement.
The intervention by Bush, in a telephone call last Friday, appeared to have failed last night when the Ulster Unionist party confirmed that it would vote against the devolution of policing and criminal justice powers to Belfast.
The unanimous decision by the party executive means that the once mighty UUP, which governed Northern Ireland until direct rule was imposed in 1972, will be the only member of the four-party power sharing executive that will vote no today. The Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein, which brokered the agreement on policing last month, will join the SDLP in voting for the deal.

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George Bush to David Cameron: don't derail Northern Ireland peace process | Politics | The Guardian

This is really quite concerning for me. The prospect of a hung parliament will present further obstacles to hamper the peace process, if either party needs their northern irish counterparts (labour with Sinn Fein and SDLP, tories with UUP and DUP) in order to gain an overall majority. I don't really think this alliance between the conservatives and the unionists can be good for the peace process at all.