Theresa May will fail nation on Brexit

With Chequers on the scrap heap and the treacherous border backstop aberration holding the government to ransom, the prime minister has effectively blown it, which is why, somewhat belatedly, some cabinet ministers are scurrying around looking for plan B.

She hasn’t got one, instead they should be looking for a new prime minister.

It is time for Mrs May to resign or be removed. The border backstop proposal, which the prime minister alone initiated last December, has conceded too much and turned NI into a hostage to a EU/all-Ireland customs union arrangement.

Ruthlessly both Dublin and Brussels will jointly press for the arrangement to become permanent, resulting in Northern Ireland being summarily annexed from the UK.

The EU will persist in supporting the border backstop as the means to aid and abet Leo Varadkar’s power play to secure EU backing to ensure that the border loses all British authority. Unionists are not open to a discussion on the border or how they will be governed post Brexit. Over 349,000 unionists voted with the majority in the UK for Brexit.

These loyal people will not be rolled into an illegal EU controlled Irish customs union. Nor will they capitulate to anti-British rules and regulations devised in Brussels and enforced by Dublin.

Unionists won the peace, they agreed to power-sharing, they are good neighbours and they will not stand by and watch all that they worked for be destroyed by republicans in Ireland and across the EU. Unionism requires strong leadership here and in London.

David McNarry, ex-MLA, Strangford