EXCL: DUP lashes out at Philip Hammond over Northern Irish border 'scare stories'
3 min read
The DUP today blasted “Remainer” Philip Hammond after the Chancellor warned a no-deal Brexit would create a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson said the top Cabinet figure wanted to “scare the devil out of people and scare Northern Ireland MPs into voting for a bad deal”.
And in a stark warning to the Prime Minister, he highlighted that the 10 DUP MPs who are propping up her minority government would help to vote down her Brexit deal if the border is threatened.
The Government has stepped up its planning for a no-deal Brexit in recent weeks, but Theresa May has insisted the border on the island of Ireland will remain open.
However, Mr Hammond said that under World Trade Organisation Rules the UK would have no choice but to carry out customs checks at the frontier between the Republic and Northern Ireland.
Mr Wilson dismissed the comments as “scare stories” from the Chancellor that should be ignored, telling PoliticsHome: “Philip Hammond is a Remainer and he is just throwing every obstacle in the way of getting a clean Brexit.
“His latest one is - if we are talking about a no deal - you try to scare the devil out of people and try to scare the Northern Ireland MPs into voting for a bad deal rather than go for a no deal.
“And a bad deal will include a draconian backstop arrangement which leaves the constitutional sword of Damocles hanging over the head of the people of Northern Ireland.
“We’re not going to buy that and we’ll take our chances with a no-deal before we would go down the road Philip Hammond and some of his cronies would have us go down.”
And in a warning shot to the Prime Minister he said his party would hold her to the promise that Northern Ireland would not be separated from the rest of the United Kingdom.
“We can hold her to that because if she brings a deal forward which doesn’t live up to that promise then she will not be able to rely on our support in the House of Commons," he said.
Mr Hammond had told a fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham: “The challenges around the Irish border are around the legal requirements we will have if we are not in a trade bloc within the European Union to operate the WTO compliant border, which does require checks at the border. That’s what the WTO rules require.”
He added: “We are depending on the WTO to regulate our relations with the rest of the world, we will have to comply with the rest of WTO regulations or we will find we can’t enforce our WTO rights against others.”
The comments appear to put him at odds with Mrs May, who said on Sunday that the Government is “committed to doing everything we can” to prevent any hardening of the border.
Mr Wilson argued existing point-to-point trade in Northern Ireland “is almost tailor-made” for trusted trader schemes and checks that could be done away from the border.
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