DUP MP: Robinson is "fundamentally wrong" on Stormont return

Rejecting Robinson’s assessment that Northern Ireland could benefit from a ‘best of both worlds’ economic scenario – Wilson says that problems with the Framework will get worse over time.

"The border between NI and GB needs to be eliminated” Wilson told the News Letter.

“The job of the Assembly and the job of ministers will not be to change the agreement - it will be to implement the agreement. That is not something which you can choose to do. That's something which after the court cases that there were - you would be required to do. Otherwise you would be in breach of the ministerial code and you would lose your ministerial office. If you lose your ministerial office now, it would be handed to another party.”

On Robinson's belief that Northern Ireland could benefit from a 'best of both worlds' scenario, Sammy Wilson says problems with the framework will get worse over time. "We don't have the best of both worlds at the moment. Hence the reason that so many people are complaining about the impact it has on them. And we certainly won't have the best of both worlds once the Windsor Framework is capable of being fully implemented.

"It can't be fully implemented at the minute for the simple reason that there are not the facilities there. We don't have the border checkpoints all built, we don't have sufficient manpower. A lot of stuff goes through where the controls are simply ignored. That will not be the case. I think the EU are deliberately not complaining about that because they see the end game is getting the infrastructure in place and then - wham!

"They can insist that the legal terms of the agreements are implemented, and we don't have any further excuses for not doing it.”

The DUP MP, who is the party’s shadow spokesperson on Brexit, sees long term constitutional risks from the current arrangements – creating an all-Ireland economy.

"In the longer term, the constitutional position of Northern Ireland becomes more precarious because you get greater divergence as EU law impacts on NI and doesn't impact on the rest of the UK - and changes in UK law impact on GB but don't impact on NI so you get that divergence. You further get the all island economy developing." He says that is strategically the big risk for unionists. "You find that more and more you get economic integration, you get political and constitutional divergence and you become less and less part of the United Kingdom."

He believes this would further nationalist political aims. "The next step would be [nationalists saying] 'we don't have democratic control - these laws are made in Brussels so we've got to have somebody to represent us'. Obviously the UK can't because we're out of the EU - so Dublin does that. That's why all of these issues have to be dealt with and dealt with properly before you go back into the Assembly. The only way you can deal with is that Northern Ireland remains firmly in the remit of UK law - not EU law".

Yesterday, the former first minister Peter Robinson told the News Letter that any offer from Downing Street must be “substantial” in order to be able to sell it to the unionist community. Robinson said the two key areas the DUP must secure progress on are the future of the union – and whether any arrangements undermine it – as well as free trade between NI and GB and vice versa.

He said the DUP’s seven tests are “unquestionably the goal for unionists. Those have to be the areas the negotiating team is concentrating on. It’s not for me to go into the detail of all of those, I’ve given advice along with the panel that consulted widely.”