Make Republic pay for talks stance: Paisley
THE UK should make life hard for the Republic over a post-Brexit fisheries deal as a response to its “disgraceful” behaviour in the current negotiations, Ian Paisley has said.
The DUP MP said if the UK government was not prepared to say that to the Dublin administration publicly, it should start to “shake their cage internally and privately”.
He made the suggestion to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in Westminster as it examines the future of the Irish border after the UK leaves the EU. Referencing the stance the UK should take with the Dublin government, Mr Paisley said the “pussyfooting needs to stop”.
“I think our neighbour has acted disgracefully,” he said.
Mr Paisley was referring to Dublin’s position that in order to avoid a hard border post-Brexit, Northern Ireland should continue to comply with European regulatory frameworks — even if the rest of the UK leaves the customs union and single market.
He said the UK had loaned the Republic “billions” of pounds to bail it out of “economic ruin and bankruptcy”.
Mr Paisley said fisheries waters used by Irish boats would become UK waters after Brexit. “As early as September 2019 they will need to make a fisheries deal, not with the rest of the EU but with us, and, frankly, if they continue to exacerbate our will as citizens of the United Kingdom, I think we should make that fisheries deal extremely long, tenuous and hard for them,” he said.