Jamie Bryson says: 'Wait and see - by summer the DUP will be pretending to be hardline on the Irish sea border'

The influential loyalist activist made the comments to the News Letter following a rally against the Protocol in Conlig, on the edge of Bangor, on Thursday night.

At the rally, Belfast Telegraph photographer Kevin Scott interviewed Mr Bryson, who re-iterated his call for the leader of the DUP to join him at a rally and set out his stall on the sea border.

He also said at one point: “Mark my words. Keep this on camera. In three months’ time the DUP will be saying what me and Jim Allister said tonight.”

Asked what he meant by that, he told the News Letter: “In January 2021 the DUP said the Protocol was ‘not a constitutional issue’ and presented ‘opportunities’. In contrast, I wrote a book saying it was dismantling the Union and the DUP should collapse Stormont. The DUP said that was a ‘foolish idea’.

"A year later almost to the day, they collapsed Stormont.

“Short of that, I’d suggested on the Nolan Show the DUP technically break the law and defy the obligation to attend North-South bodies. The DUP said they wouldn’t breach their legal obligations.

“Three months later the DUP defied the high court on North-South bodies.

“In December 2021 I issued a letter calling on the DUP to halt checks.

"At the end of January 2022, Edwin Poots issued an order to halt checks.

“Two months ago the DUP leadership said the Irish Sea border had ‘gone’. People like me and Jim said the opposite.

"Now even the most ardent supporters of the Donaldson Deal accept the Irish Sea border remains.

““The DUP came over to accept the arguments put forward by me and Jim Allister and the grassroots unionist and loyalist community, not the other way around, then via the Donaldson Deal they tried to u-turn away from that – but that position was always unsustainable.

"Wait and see, by the middle of the summer the DUP will be back pretending to be hardline on the Protocol and Irish Sea border."

The DUP used to attend such Protocol rallies alongside Mr Bryson and the TUV, but ceased in the run-up to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s decision to return to Stormont.

That decision was taken in January, at which time the government published details of a deal with the DUP called ‘Safeguarding the Union’.

The DUP responded with a statement from Gregory Campbell who said “unionists must spend less time attacking each other and more time making Northern Ireland a real success story”.

He added: “We welcome anyone who wants to join us in actually doing something about problems rather than just complaining about them. There are some people who can only see the problems and don’t consider making further progress. I’m a believer in fixing the problems.”

At 7.30pm next Friday (April 26) there will be another rally, this time at Dromore Orange Hall in Co Down.

It is billed as “the first major Reform UK–TUV event sine the GB and NI parties agreed to work together.

It will be addressed by former cabinet minister Ann Widdecombe, Reform UK deputy leader Ben Habib, Baroness Kate Hoey and TUV leader Jim Allister.