UNIONISTS ENGAGE IN A WAR OF WORDS
DONALDSON AND EMPEY IN ANGRY EXCHANGES OVER LATEST BREXIT PROPOSALS
PM’S EU EXIT PLANS WILL PUT NI’S PEACE IN JEOPARDY: TONY BLAIR
TWO senior unionists have engaged in a hard-hitting and at times personal war of words over Boris Johnson’s Brexit proposals.
The row between UUP grandee Lord Empey and DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson comes amid angry exchanges between the parties over the latest plan put forward by the UK.
The PM’s offer to the EU would replace the backstop through a series of different arrangements.
It gives Stormont the power to decide whether Northern Ireland remains aligned with EU regulations post-Brexit, but the 17-page document does not detail what happens if devolution is still suspended.
The DUP has backed the proposals, with leader Arlene Foster saying it is a serious and sensible way forward.
However, other parties have criticised the blueprint, with Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O’Neill yesterday branding it “reckless and dangerous”.
Lord Empey said the PM’s plan would effectively give Northern Ireland the “special status” that nationalists and republicans have campaigned for.
On Saturday the UUP chairman questioned how any unionist could give their support to the proposed deal.
However, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson — who was a colleague of Sir Reg in the UUP before defecting to the DUP in 2004 — rejected the criticism, saying the proposals will not create a trade barrier in the Irish Sea.
“It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and complain without offering a single realistic solution,” he said.
Sir Jeffrey went on to accuse Lord Empey of “fighting battles against the DUP which he lost 15 years ago”, and said that unionist voters want their leaders to work together.
“He should deal with his bitterness, focus on the policy rather than the person and move on,” the DUP MP said.
Sir Jeffrey said that the PM’s deal “removes the threat of the backstop and fully respects our constitutional position within the UK”. “Sinn Fein and Dublin know it and that is why they have expressed their opposition to this deal with so much anger.”
Lord Empey responded last night, saying the DUP MP “clearly doesn’t understand what he has agreed to”.
He said that Government documents on the Brexit proposals state that Northern Ireland will be in a “different regulatory area to Great Britain and we would be governed by laws over which we have no say”.
Lord Empey said this establishes that Northern Ireland will have a “special status”.
The former UUP leader said the proposal to give Stormont a say over Northern Ireland’s relationship with the EU “would make it a border poll every four years and destroy and chance of building normal politics here”.
He also pointed to confusion over how the Stormont veto would work, saying the Secretary of State had been unclear over the precise arrangements.
“This is reckless stuff. It is clear that this has not been thought through — we have had three suggestions in three days as to how this would be done,” Lord Empey said.
“I cannot see how the EU would agree to this bright idea. Furthermore, there is no support for it from local parties anyway.
“This is seat of your pants politics.
“Not thought through and no consultation in advance on something vital to our future.”
Lord Empey said that the DUP needed to “think again” about the Prime Minister’s proposals.
“I want us to honour the 2016 referendum and see an end to the uncertainty by us leaving with a deal as soon as we can,” he said.
“This scheme gives us the worst of both worlds — two borders not one. Larne becomes the point of entry as well as Newry. This is not what Leave voters imagined in 2016.”
Sir Reg said the current plan would stop Britain trading freely with Northern Ireland.
Describing it as the “Achilles heel of his case”, he claimed it was a total abandonment of the DUP’s promises in recent years.
He added: “Smoke and mirrors won’t be enough to get the DUP out of this mess. It’s a sad day when any unionist party envisages us being in a totally different ‘regulatory zone’ from the rest of our country.
“This will lead to further calls for our economy to align with the Republic’s, and the complication of being in a zone where regulations are different on either side of the channel between us and Scotland, can only be a barrier to new investment.”
In a remarkable and quite public spat between two high-profile unionists, Sir Jeffrey had earlier accused the UUP of achieving “absolutely nothing” in their past attempts to work with the Conservative Party.
That appears a reference to the botched electoral alliance between the UUP and Conservatives a decade ago.
It came to an abrupt end in 2010 when their political pact failed to deliver a single MP in that year’s general election.
Sir Jeffrey added: “The DUP sought and won the commitment in the PM’s proposals for the prior and ongoing consent of the Executive and the Assembly to any regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.”
He said the UK as a whole is leaving the EU single market and that any remaining regulatory alignment with the EU would only apply to goods such as agrifood to appease Northern Ireland’s farmers and the business community.
“The DUP is absolutely clear that an all-Ireland economic zone, with all goods and services exclusively under EU rules, and the resulting regulatory border in the Irish Sea is not something we would support,” Sir Jeffrey said.
“Nor will we support trade barriers between here and Great Britain and that is why this deal means Northern Ireland will remain firmly within the UK customs arrangements and outside the EU customs union.”