Deputy First Minister says WhatsApp messages over Stormont job title showed her opposition to divergence

​It comes after the TUV MP Jim Allister said that text messages between the deputy First Minister and civil service boss Jayne Brady show the DUP is “a party obsessed with damage control, not damage repair”.

He was responding to newspaper revelations that Ms Little-Pengelly had described the appointment of a ‘head of regulatory divergence’ as “hugely politically embarrassing for me”.

The messages, first reported in the Belfast Telegraph, show the deputy First Minister asking Ms Brady “who on earth named this” and questioning how they thought it “wasn’t going to attract attention and concern”.

The post was advertised last Autumn, after the DUP had moved away from its initial false claims that the Irish Sea border had been removed.

Asked by the News Letter about criticism that her primary concern was about how the advertisement of the post looked politically for herself and for the DUP, the deputy First Minister said that was not the reason she was “disconcerted”.

“My concern was entirely because we should not be managing divergence – we should be avoiding divergence. That is what I do, and try to do, week in and week out.

“And indeed, as I mentioned in that WhatsApp exchange, the Prime Minister had indicated, for example, that there would not be divergence from the Great Britain perspective, pending those UK-EU discussions.

“So in that context, there was no divergence to be managed. And indeed, we should not be managing divergence. We need to secure the UK single market. That is the promise that was given to Northern Ireland by the UK Government”.

She said that where her “sole aim” was to avoid divergence, advertising for a post to manage it “seemed to be an acceptance” that it would happen, adding: “I don’t accept that is an inevitable outcome. I do believe that this UK government must step up and avoid divergence at all costs”.