Sammy Wilson hits back at ex-PSNI chief constable Hugh Orde over his 'blindingly obvious Brexit' blunder comments

Sir Hugh led the PSNI from 2002 to 2009, after the force replaced the RUC in 2001.

He made his comments at the ‘Seamus Mallon Memorial Lecture’ at Ulster University in Belfast on Thursday night.

The ex-policeman told his audience that “the border between the North and South” had “enjoyed a degree of constructive ambiguity, facilitated by shared membership of the EU”.

But “since the vote (not supported in here) to leave took place, the utterly foreseeable complications based on a land border have come to the fore”.

Sir Hugh went on to say: “It is not for me to comment on the tactics deployed by the different political parties to deal with the current arrangements that were agreed by the Government during the leave negotiations.

"But the fall out has in my judgement the real potential to destabilise communities, increase tension and inevitably put additional pressure on policing.

"The lack of local governance clearly doesn’t help. Trying to fix a problem that was so blindingly obvious to anyone that had the most basic understanding of what leaving the EU would mean post event will be difficult, bordering on impossible in my judgement.

"The fact concerns were dismissed as ‘scaremongering’ was contemptable, yet that is what happened.”

MR WILSON HITS BACK:

DUP MP and Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson rounded on Sir Hugh’s remarks.

He told the News Letter that “this is a narrative that you have from all of those who opposed Brexit anyway: that the border arrangements we have now were inevitable, either a border betwen NI and the RoI, or between NI and GB”.

Mr Wilson indicated that this was instead “a political choice” made by the EU, who wilfully made things as difficult as possible.

Instead of a border on land or sea, Mr Wilson said the DUP’s solution was for declarations to be made by those responsible for consignments crossing from GB into Northern Ireland.

These declarations would affirm that the goods met all the relevant safety codes, tax rules and so on, and would apply only to the minority of consignments which are intended to enter the Republic.

Asked about the potential for people to intentionally falsify such paperwork, Mr Wilson recalled a conversation he had with HMRC officials about Brexit.

They had told him that much of the UK’s tax system already relies on the good faith of people to accurately report such things – noting that the reason most people don’t cheat on their tax returns is because the risk being found out, leading to criminal punishment and reputational damage.

Before Brexit happened, Diageo (the beer and spirit maker, which has plants in both Ireland and Northern Ireland) moved goods from one jurisdiction to another all the time, placing them under different tax regimes, said Mr Wilson.

This all happened “seamlessly, by electronic registering of goods… without any lorries being stopped”.

"Every time [these ideas] were discussed they were dismissed out of hand because it did not suit the political agenda,” Mr Wilson added.

"Yes – [the current situation] is a result of political tactics by parties: namely parties in the Irish Republic.

"They were the ones who raised the prospect of border posts being blown up. It wasn’t the DUP who did that. It was Varadkar.

"So I agree him him – there were political tactics involved here.

"The people who should be hanging their heads in shame and be red-faced at present are politicians in the Republic, politicians in Europe, and those anti-Brexit politicians in the UK who were quite happy for that narritive to be given some credibility.”

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