Statement by Jim Allister MLA:
“The report of the Dail committee into Brexit spells out, in clear black and white terms, the overriding Republican agenda of those opposed to the democratic decision of the United Kingdom to leave the EU.
“All the talk of “special status” within the EU and a border in the Irish Sea is exposed as an agenda to unite Ireland under a Dublin parliament. This unfolding agenda points up the folly of the then leadership of the UUP in helping deliver an anti-Brexit local vote, though, happily, it is the national vote which matters and is binding.
“We joined the EU as one United Kingdom and must leave as one United Kingdom. The same post-Brexit situation must pertain in Northern Ireland as in other parts of our nation. Dublin’s now transparent Republican agenda must be rejected.
“For all their bluster the Republic knows that they badly need the UK market for their agricultural sector. It is therefore in their interests more than any other part of the EU that a sensible deal is done on Brexit. Indeed, though it is a matter for them, the Republic would be better serving its own long term interests by itself leaving the failed and stultifying EU.”