The Conservatives are preparing to form a government with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), after shock election losses saw Theresa May’s party fall short of a Commons majority.

Tory officials took part in “extensive talks” with Northern Ireland’s largest unionist political party overnight but the deal could come at a high price.

The DUP has regularly courted controversy in its near 50-year history for its views on issues from same sex marriage to climate change.

Here are some of the most controversial positions held by the party:

LGBT rights

Ian Paisley Jr, son of the party’s founder Ian Paisley, has previously called homosexuality “immoral, offensive and obnoxious” and said he was “repulsed” by gays and lesbians.

The party once championed a campaign called “Save Ulster from Sodomy”.

Former DUP health minister Jim Wells told a South Down hustings in 2015: “The gay lobby is insatiable, they don’t know when enough is enough.”

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Climate change

The party once appointed climate change denier Sammy Wilson as its environment minister.

Mr Wilson said it was a “con” to suggest humans had changed weather patterns.

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Evolution and creationism

The party counts a number of creationists among its senior members.

DUP assembly member for West Tyrone, Thomas Buchanan, last year endorsed an event promoting creationism to be “taught in every school”.

The event included presenting “the biblical case for the sound teaching of children” that will “offer helpful practical advice on how to counter evolutionary teaching”.

DUP politician Edwin Poots has expressed his views that the planet is a “young earth” created just 4,000 years ago.

“You’re telling me that cosmic balls of dust gathered and there was an explosion. We’ve had lots of explosions in Northern Ireland and I’ve never seen anything come out of that that was good,” he told the Radio Times.