Empey: No amount of DUP spin can hide fact these plans weaken Northern Ireland’s position as a full part of the United Kingdom

These proposals create a border up the Irish sea as is made perfectly clear in paragraph 4 of the government’s Explanatory Note, which states, “The proposal set out in this note would see regulatory checks applying between Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.

This is quite clearly not compatible with the previous comments of Arlene Foster or Nigel Dodds.

In November 2017 Arlene Foster said, “there can be no arrangements agreed that compromise the integrity of the UK single market and place barriers, real or perceived, to the free movement of goods, services and capital between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom”.

Also in November 2017, Nigel Dodds said, “for us the integrity of the United Kingdom is non-negotiable. If the EU wants to insist on border check points on the island of Ireland that is a matter for them. There will be no internal UK border in the Irish Sea.”

For the DUP to maintain that these new proposals are compatible with their previous statements is to take the wider unionist community for fools.

The facts are very clear. Northern Ireland would stay in the single market for goods, in an all-island regulatory zone. There would be additional checks for goods travelling from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, which is clearly a breach of the UK’s internal single market.

I have no idea what threats have been made or promises offered to persuade the DUP to accept these proposals, but I am very clear that they represent a complete abandonment of the DUP’s previous position that there should be no border in the Irish Sea.

I am shocked that anybody describing themselves as a unionist would be not simply accepting but advocating a border up the Irish Sea.

I do not know how any unionist can possibly stand in front of the electorate and say that. It is an outrage, and people need to think very carefully where we are going with all of this.

If the NI assembly will have a role in whether or not to accept EU regulations, it will certainly not be a veto — there may be some form of consultation.

But, lest some will claim that there will be an effective unionist veto over accepting EU regulations for a limited time period, may I point out that if a decision of the assembly is needed to agree to that, then Sinn Fein and other nationalists will have a veto over whether or not we can get out of that regulatory regime when any time period would be agreed with Brussels.

Is this what the DUP’s Brexit campaign was all about? I do not think they ever saw Northern Ireland being in such a constitutional mess. They have not thought things through.

These proposals are dangerous; they clearly weaken Northern Ireland’s position as a full and equal member of the United Kingdom and regardless of whatever is going on with the DUP, the Ulster Unionist Party has no hesitation in saying so.

Lord Empey, Ulster Unionist Peer, House of Lords