DUP hits back at TUV criticism and ‘misleading’ Financial Times article

The article said that Mr Wilson’s letter to agriculture department Defra revealed that the DUP “secretly warned against Northern Ireland trade deal demand” adding that the party “rubbished dual regulation approach months before making it a condition of accepting Sunak’s Brexit agreement”.

Mr Wilson said the article was “misleading”, commenting: "It was last September the Ulster Farmers Union came to see me about the Protocol Bill. They said that dual regulation wouldn’t work for farmers, I explained to them that I was in support of dual regulation and I didn’t see how it couldn’t work for farmers as they could sell to both markets.

“Their main concern was that if they had been consulted before the Protocol Bill had been drawn up then maybe some of these anomalies could have been avoided.

“The letter makes this quite clear.

“I told them I would write to the department but I wasn’t taking a view that dual regulation was wrong."

He said: "I did it to the best of my ability without compromising my position on it.

“There’s lots of time as a public representative that you right to departments about issues that people have raised with you, it doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with them. Your job is to take the issues up.”

He said that the journalist who wrote the article for the FT, having read the letter should have seen clearly that he was not endorsing the view of the Ulster Farmers Union.

Mr Wilson said: “Under no circumstances could it even be interpreted that I was supporting an end of dual regulation or attacking dual regulation. You don’t endorse something that you don’t believe in.

"I’d spoken about it in the House of Commons for goodness sake and put statements out about it along with mutual recognition, which would actually sort the thing out even better.”

Meanwhile DUP MLA Phillip Brett has said the barrage of attacks on the DUP by fellow unionists will do little to combat the electoral success of non-unionists.

The North Belfast representative was speaking after TUV leader Jim Allister told his party’s conference that the DUP “dithered and equivocated” over the Windsor Framework – a deal which he said offered no change in substance to the NI Protocol, only “tinkering”.

Mr Allister said of the DUP panel on the framework that is due to report back this week: “When you are abandoned to a foreign customs code that decrees GB a foreign country and put under foreign laws and court, then, no unionist leader should need a panel to consult on the acceptability of such hostile annexation.”

Mr Brett warned that unionists attacking unionists would only help Sinn Fein as they attempt to undermine Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.

He said: “Some unionists seem to thrive on attacking fellow unionists rather than offering a credible plan for the future.

"At the last election those who told unionists ‘you can’t split the vote in a PR election’ were exposed for their foolishness but unfortunately it was at the cost of actual unionist seats.

"North Antrim is an example. A plethora of unionist candidates resulted in one less unionist in the NI Assembly and one more non-unionist.

“As unionists, we must be honest, it wasn’t nationalists or others who caused a number of pro-union seats to be lost at the NI Assembly election.

"That was the direct result of a splintered unionism where three seats were lost in Strangford, North Antrim and East Antrim. Each constituency had four unionist quotas yet each constituency only three elected unionists. That is not sustainable.

“It’s no good talking about the theory that you cannot split the vote in a PR election when the real world evidence shows pro-union representation weakened because of those splinters and division.

“As Sinn Fein seeks to undermine the Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom, further division within unionism will be music to their ears.”