evidence: A politician since the age of 25, Foster has been a polarising figure in a polarising political set-up. She came to UK prominence in 2017, when former prime minister Theresa May unexpectedly lost her parliamentary majority. The DUP had been seen as a fringe religious relic at Westminster. Suddenly its votes counted. Foster and colleagues extracted £1 billion in public spending in exchange for propping up May’s Conservative government. They were lauded as the master negotiators, the puppetmasters. [...] By 2020, the DUP’s days of influence were over. Northern Ireland’s businesses and citizens were left with the mess of Brexit bureaucracy and disrupted identity. The DUP’s religious right, angered by Foster’s moderate line on abortion and banning gay conversion therapy, mobilised the ill-feeling to topple her. To her critics, Foster is the leader who won the lottery, then tore up the winning ticket. "The art is knowing when to cash your chips in," says one May supporter. "The DUP could be very adept tacticians, but they were utterly lacking in strategy," says another. Many unionists can’t understand why the DUP has brought the union into question by supporting a hard Brexit, which most Northern Irish voters opposed.