DUP Brexiteers are risking a border in the Irish Sea

Is it not about time the DUP woke up and smelled the coffee?
Letters to EditorLetters to Editor
Letters to Editor

The party’s slavish hanging on to the Brexit bandwagon is leading unionism where it does not want to go?

There is a growing body of evidence that points to the fact that the (English) Brexiteers are becoming increasingly fed up with the prospect that the “Irish Border” issue threatens to stymie their desire for a proper Brexit from the EU.

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Let’s look at the evidence. The Daily Telegraph columnist Juliet Samuel is leading the way here.

On March 4 she wrote that to follow the EU “backstop” position would lead to customs checks down the Irish Sea.

She wrote “this is unlikely to bother most Britons who, if the cruel truth be told, couldn’t give a fig for Northern Ireland”.

Later on June 11 she wrote about the terrible choice facing Theresa May and her MPs.

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They face “compromising territorial integrity by sacrificing Northern Ireland or accepting the subjection of the whole of the UK to EU customs policy and the full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice”.

Another Daily Telegraph columnist, Jeremy Warner, writing on June 15, states that leaving the EU may “even result in the breakup of the UK. But if the Brexit vote is to be honoured, it’s the only way to proceed.”

We also have the arch Brexiteer Boris Johnson expressing concern that “the tail is wagging the dog” — that is the Irish border issue is threatening to dictate the whole nature of any Brexit deal.

And then, to top it all, today’s News Letter (June 20) reports that “Tory Leave voters would choose Brexit over Union” (73% for Brexit, 22% for holding the union together).

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In other words the Brexiteers desire for what they would recognise as a proper, clean Brexit overrides any concern about a border down the Irish Sea.

The best interests of Northern Ireland unionism can only be protected by the UK as a whole staying in the EU. But the DUP seems bent on an approach that points in exactly the opposite direction.

To be fair, however, I have to admit that there is a sting in the tail.

If the DUP were to vote in such a way as to bring down the government over Brexit we might then have a general election and the possibility of Jeremy Corbyn being the next Prime Minister.

We know only too well Corbyn’s attitude to Northern Ireland unionism!

Frederick W. Boal, Ballyclare