Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“It is becoming very clear that the EU’s stance on Brexit negotiations, as they affect Northern Ireland, is infected by the nationalist aspirations of ROI and motivated by its anti-British agenda. By trying to set this part of the UK as a place apart within its nation of choice the EU is disrespecting our constitutional affinity and the reality that a UK which joined the EU as one nation must leave as one nation.
“Any arrangement which makes Northern Ireland’s leaving of the EU any less emphatic than that of the rest of the UK is not acceptable and must be firmly rejected by our government because of the injury it does to our constitutional position.
“Once more the EU parades its hypocrisy in its document in protesting the prospect of a hard border. It is solely EU intransigence in insisting on imposing tariffs at its borders which raises the prospect of a hard border. The UK seeks free trade; the EU holds to the doctrinaire diktats of its Customs Union and it is that which insists on a trade border.”