Sammy Wilson accuses Leo Varadkar of losing 'self control'

East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson has issued a stinging statement accusing Taoiseach Leo Varadkar of having "lost any sense of self control in relation to the decision of the UK to leave the EU".
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

Mr Wilson said: "His threats to “ban British planes as revenge for Brexit” , his suggestion that NI electricity supplies could be affected by Brexit, his outlandish comments that leaving the EU could result in a Berlin Wall along the Irish Border only made him a laughing stock they were so over the top.

"They diminished his standing as a politician who should in any way be taken seriously.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"However his latest use of a victim of the IRA who was killed when the republican terrorists blew up a border post scrapes the bottom of the very deep barrel of threats, deception and rhetoric which he has dipped into in order to persuade ignorant heads of EU states that the EU must insist in detaching NI from the UK in any Brexit deal."

Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar
Leo Varadkar

The veteran DUP MP added: "First of all he knows just how some of the republican madmen in NI will react to the false fears he is stirring up about barriers along the border. Indeed he knows that they will use them to influence stupid and easily led young people to join their ranks.

"Secondly he knows there is no chance or need to erect the kind of checkpoints which he carelessly talk about. In fact he has been given assurances that even in the event of no deal at all there will be no checkpoints erected.

"Thirdly he has full knowledge of the working of his own trade monitoring arrangements which collect taxes on cross border trade at present and which would continue to be used after the UK leaves the EU."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mr Wilson further claimed that Mr Varadkar's "behaviour is despicable , low and rotten".

Sammy Wilson and Leo VaradkarSammy Wilson and Leo Varadkar
Sammy Wilson and Leo Varadkar

"He is not so stupid as to be unaware of the impact it can have especially given the record of republican over the summer when they used impressionable young people to engage in sectarian attacks against the Protestant community in Londonderry," he said.

"For six years as a member of the NI executive I worked with ministers from the Irish Republic and was proud of the good rapport which I built up with them and believed that it benefitted NI to establish good relations. Leo Varadkar has taken a sledgehammer to the work which was done but even more worrying is his total disregard to the impact of his irresponsible and reckless rhetoric on the peace of NI."