UUP Peer Slams DUP Brexit Actions

A UUP peer has hit out at the DUP for their "strategic blunder" which made the much-discussed backstop to keep Northern Ireland in the Customs Union and Single Market a central part of Brexit negotiations.

Former Ulster Unionist leader Lord Empey, who served as a Member of the EU Committee of the Regions in Brussels for eight years, said the current impasse dates back to an agreement reached in December 2017 in the Joint Report from the EU and UK.

"After amendment, this agreement was supported by the DUP and by David Davis and Boris Johnson. Now all of them are trying to distance themselves from the time bomb they created last year," he said.

Alongside the backstop, the agreement laid out terms for the rights of UK citizens, the Irish border, and the amount the UK should pay as part of it's divorce deal.

"Reports from London say that the Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox MP, has warned the Cabinet that the backstop would become 'legally binding in perpetuity, unlike a political treaty or declaration and that Britain would suffer huge repetitional damage if it failed to honour it in full,'" said Lord Empey.

"This is what I mean by a huge strategic blunder by the DUP, Boris Johnson and David Davis. It's a millstone around our necks.

"There is no doubt that the question of the Irish border is being used by Brussels and Dublin as a battering ram in these talks."

He explained that in the EU's view, the level of trade here is minute, but it is clear the Irish Government would not survive if a physical border was erected. For this reason, officials in Brussels are unlikely to impose a border, so the current Brexit deadlock is unwarranted according to Lord Empey.



(JG)