Paisley tells Brexit rally that his party won’t be used as ‘puppets’ to boost PM
A Brexit rally in London last night heard claims from a DUP MP that the party will not allow itself to be used as a “puppet” to keep Boris Johnson in power and then be disposed of.
North Antrim MP Ian Paisley was addressing the Brexit party rally in London. He told the audience that he felt like he was in a “home from home” at the event.
“I believe that we are blood brothers and blood sisters,” he said.
“I believe we share a common passion, something that some people just don’t quite get. That is that we are a united people, the clue is in the word. Unity. United Kingdom.
“We are a single entity of people from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and we are together.”
Mr Paisley said that the deal would “leave part of the union behind” and told the audience the DUP would be voting against it in Parliament today.
He also addressed comments from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar that unionism had nothing to fear from Mr Johnson’s deal.
“I certainly do not need assurfrom Mr Varadkar about what it means to be British,” Mr Paisley said.
“The blood of Britishness beats through my heart and in my veins like every Ulsterman and Ulsterwoman.
“We are proud of that and will never be turned away from it.”
Mr Paisley then turned his attentions to Mr Johnson.
Quoting Edward Carson, Mr Paisley said: “I was to be a puppet used in a game”. Lord Carson famously said that he had been used by the Conservatives ahead of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty.
“What a fool I was! I was only a puppet, and so was Ulster, and so was Ireland, in the political game that was to get the Conservative Party into power,” he told the Commons.
Mr Paisley evoked the sentiment in his address to the Brexit Party rally.
“To be a rung in a ladder for someone else to climb up upon in order to get that party into power and then to kick that ladder away,” he said.
“One hundred years of history teaches unionism one thing, we ain’t disposable, we ain’t being kicked away so easily, we are here for the long-term, we are here to stay. No surrender.”