Sammy Wilson blasts former PM Theresa May amid post-Brexit complications

The DUP MP for East Antrim highlighted that his party will continue to fight against Brexit and the trade barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Speaking to GB News, Mr Wilson said: “First of all, I think that even the Prime Minister should not have been accepting this deal because it goes against what he said he was setting out to achieve. He wanted to replicate what was in the protocol bill. He didn't replicate that.

“The reasons why we're opposed to it are very clear. First of all, Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, will still be subject to EU laws being imposed and the government has actually given the EU permission to impose its laws on this part of the United Kingdom.

“Secondly, the framework document makes it quite clear that trade between GP and Northern Ireland, even where that trade is exclusively for people in Northern Ireland, will be inhibited.

“So all of these things and of course, the government has promised that you can have a block or a break on EU law, if you feel it's detrimental to Northern Ireland.

Discussing Brexit, Mr. Wilson said: “I don't regret Brexit. What I regret is the spineless way in which the Conservative government, in order to get itself out of its own difficulties, was prepared to treat Northern Ireland differently and have Northern Ireland treated as if Brexit never happened in this part of the United Kingdom.

“The referendum was a UK-wide referendum. The referendum was for the UK as a whole to leave the EU, and that's what was promised. That's what should have happened. And we had a government that was prepared to abandon part of the United Kingdom.

“Now albeit that they argue that they thought that that was only a temporary arrangement, and the EU would play ball in putting together the alternative arrangements which were promised in the political declaration. The EU didn't play ball and the UK Government didn't have the courage to stand up to the EU's breaking of the arrangements, which they thought they had agreed with them.”

Discussing who is to blame for the position Northern Ireland finds itself in after Brexit, Mr. Wilson added: “First of all, the box that we're placed in was clearly the responsibility of Theresa May. She made an agreement with the EU that there would be no hard border and no checks at all. And no arrangements put in place to monitor trade between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

“Once she had done that and once we were in that box, then it was always gonna be impossible and very difficult for future Prime Ministers to get that changed.

“So Theresa May put us in the position. Boris Johnson didn't fight hard enough to get us out of that position. And of course, Rishi Sunak has tried to change it, made some minor changes to it, but the fundamentals are what Theresa May agreed."