Sammy Wilson: DUP won’t back Brexit deal in return for meaningless assurances, promises of financial help or pledges of changes in a future trade agreement

Once again the DUP has had to use its parliamentary influence to deliver two blows to the prime minister’s hopes of putting through a deal which less than a year ago he himself stated he would never countenance.

The fact is that despite his claims of this being a great deal it is Mrs May’s deal with the only changes being to the Northern Ireland section of the agreement.

Those changes are toxic and every day the full implication of them becomes more apparent.

First of all they have NI having to accept its laws on agriculture, food production, manufacturing, aid to industry, environment etc decided by the EU.

While on paper we remain part of the UK customs territory in fact we have to adhere to all the EU customs rules.

That means that every good brought in from GB has to have a customs declaration, could be subject to physical checks and have tariffs imposed on them until the purchaser proves that they will not finish up as part of any good which goes into the EU.

On top of that all goods going from NI to GB will have to have an export declaration which costs time and money.

So in terms of trade we have to treat the country to which we belong as a foreign country.

Thirdly any trade deals which the UK does with other countries will exclude NI if they contain conditions which prejudice EU regulations and the EU has the final say on that decision.

Whatever spin the government wishes to place on this deal it will result in a hard legal, customs and economic border between the country to which we belong and the economy on which we most depend.

That is why despite the immense pressure which was exerted upon us, and the predictions of some journalists and commentators, including some who wrote in this newspaper, the DUP has refused to support this deal and have used our votes to stop the government driving it through.

The government has argued that these are only transitory arrangements which can be removed either by the NI assembly (if Sinn Fein ever remove their veto to let it sit) or by a future trade arrangement with the EU which it hopes will be in place within the next year.

Both of these claims are as untrue as the prime minister’s claim that this agreement does not create a border between NI and GB down the Irish Sea.

In this deal, the central pillar of the Belfast Agreement which requires cross community votes on controversial and sensitive issues, has been replaced with a straight majority vote on whether or not we accept these arrangements, because it was known that this deal would never get the support of unionists in the assembly.

No explanation was given for this dramatic tearing up of the Belfast Agreement other than it was a necessary condition to get Leo Varadkar’s support for the deal.

So the Irish now dictate to the British prime minister how votes are to be taken in the NI assembly and he has allowed them to do so. He has found out that we will use every strategy and every alliance to stop him.

His claim is that a future trade agreement with the EU could wipe away all these special arrangements for NI. Even a cursory reading of the deal would show that this is not the case.

First of all the EU would have to agree and secondly they have already made it clear in the Withdrawal Agreement that even with a FTA all or part of the special arrangements for NI could apply.

Having seen how the prime minister caved in to the EU to meet his deadline of October 31 how can anyone have any confidence that he would not do the same as his deadline of December 2020 for completion of a trade agreement approaches.

There are no exit mechanisms from this deal unless the EU agree, that is why every effort must be made to prevent it going through parliament and every lever must be employed to persuade the government to get it changed.

All is not lost.

Although we do not share their objectives of overturning the referendum result, we can give support to and get support from the opposition parties in parliament as we did in the past to defeat Mrs May’s deal.

We have done that already twice this week and succeeded in stopping the government from driving this deal through in two days.

That is why yesterday when the bill should have passed through the House of Commons it has still not even started its scrutiny stage.

When it does start to be scrutinised there will be many amendments which have a chance winning support and which would make the bill unacceptable to the government. That is one way of killing this deal.

There are those in government who know this deal has wider implications for the Union especially in Scotland and who also recognise that if there is to be a delay in leaving the EU now that the deal cannot get through Parliament, that delay could be used to get changes made.

We will work positively with the government to explore how this could be done and are already doing so.

The one thing we won’t be doing is accepting some meaningless assurances, promises of some financial help in return for our support for this deal or pledges that the government will get changes made in some future trade deal.

This deal would start the destruction of the union by orientating NI law making and politics towards Dublin and away from Westminster. It would have enormous implications for the costs of thousands of small businesses in NI. For these reasons we will not change our minds on. This deal for a handful of cash or a mouthful of promises.

• Sammy Wilson is MP for East Antrim and DUP Brexit spokesperson