Jim Allister responds to DUP sea border shift: 'Unionist voters know who they can trust'

The TUV boss was responding to Wednesday night’s acknowledgement from the DUP leader that the Irish Sea border still exists.

Gavin Robinson also said that his party would seek to get rid of EU law in Northern Ireland.

Mr Allister said: “What matters is not the DUP’s latest spin on its Donaldson Deal, as it pivots in circles, but the substance of their deal which carries Gavin Robinson’s indelible fingerprints.

“None of the substance of their deal has changed. Under the DUP deal the Irish Sea border stays, EU law stays and economic alignment with the Republic stays.

“We continue to be disenfranchised from making the laws in over 300 areas of legislation, because those matters lie with a foreign parliament. Not one word of the Protocol was changed by the DUP deal.

“The fact they brazenly lied about these issues, infamously declaring, ‘Zero checks, Zero paperwork’, is the background against which the latest DUP promises will be measured.

“Now, they say EU law must go and the sea border must go - the very things they told us they had removed! Do they take voters for fools? The somersaulting DUP leadership may have no shame, but Unionist voters have enough discernment to know who they can trust.”

Gavin Robinson also addressed rivals in his speech, saying: “It is important to recognise that both within our party and across wider Unionism there were deeply held, legitimate views as to the best way to proceed. Those who took the view that the Command Paper did not contain enough to remedy our ills were entitled to that view.

“Equally however, personal name calling, particularly by those based outside NI who called into question our unionism or our commitment to doing what is best for NIshould not have happened and ought never to be repeated or defended.

“Going forward, where within wider Unionism we differ, we should all do so respectfully and well rather than in narrow and hurtful terms and we should certainly never call into question the bona fides of fellow unionists”.