DUP Deputy leader Nigel Dodds calls 2017 general election result a gift from God

Mr Dodds said that looking back, the hung parliament, which gave his party maximum influence, was 'no accident'

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds with Arlene Foster shortly before his speech to his party's annual conference (PA)

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds has suggested that the 2017 general election result was a gift from God.

In his speech to the DUP conference this afternoon, Mr Dodds said: “If I’m honest, I did not believe that in 2017 we were heading for a hung Parliament where the DUP would hold the balance of power, but looking back I don’t think it was an accident how things turned out.

“On reflection, it’s hard to imagine how the results could have done more to maximise our influence.”

A party spokesperson said the words were indeed, “An allusion to guidance from a higher power”.

Theresa May’s decision to hold an election in June 2017, and then lose her majority and strike a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party, at a time when the future of Ireland is of central importance to Brexit, has left the DUP with more influence over affairs both at home and in Westminster than ever before.

Mr Dodds also ruled out suggestions that Northern Ireland could remain in the EU’s customs union after Brexit, telling the party “there will be no internal UK border in the Irish Sea”.

He said if the EU wanted to install custom checks on the border between Northern Ireland and the republic that was “a matter for them”. But how an entirely frictionless border could exist between the two countries after the UK leaves the customs union is far from clear.

He told the party that “Brexit is happening. who campaigned for Brexit in advance of last year’s referendum, despite the difficulties it might pose to the Good Friday Agreement and the open border with the South".

Since the DUP’s last conference, the Northern Irish Executive collapsed over the Renewable Heat Scandal, triggering an election in January, from which no new executive has yet been formed, and the DUP have struck a £1bn deal with Theresa May’s minority government in return for supporting it at Westminster.

Mr Dodds called it a “chance of a lifetime and the opportunity of a generation for unionism”.

The new UK Government chief whip Julian Smith will address the conference this afternoon.