Ulster Unionist Party Chief Whip and Brexit spokesperson, Steve Aiken OBE MLA, has stated that comments from the DUP over the weekend are simply not credible given their support for a border in the Irish Sea.
Mr Aiken said:
“On one hand we read claims that Nigel Dodds is shooting down Boris Johnson`s plans to break the Brexit deadlock, claiming that what is being discussed between the EU and UK ‘cannot work’, yet we have another senior DUP representative, Christopher Stalford MLA, a member of the DUP Stormont talks team, writing on twitter that it ‘might be an idea to see what comes forward from the discussions with the EU?’ Once again DUP doublespeak has been exposed and it is clear that they do not have a coherent negotiating position.
“Then we had comments from a DUP spokesperson over the weekend stating that the DUP position was that the ‘UK must leave the EU as ONE NATION and ‘in doing so that NO BARRIERS TO TRADE are erected WITHIN THE UK’. This statement is simply not credible, nor believable, as the DUP have already agreed to barriers to trade within the UK when they endorsed, supported and advocated a border in the Irish Sea as part of the Foster/Johnson plan.
“The DUP surrendered the principle of the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom when they agreed to a border in the Irish Sea and now they are belatedly trying to row back from that disastrous decision. They should have listened to other unionists instead.”