DUP member Sammy Wilson has described as 'bizarre' the suggestion that the DUP was using the threat of violence at to staff at ports in Northern Ireland to score political points.
“That's a bizarre argument,” he told RTÉ radio's Today with Claire Byrne show, “because the only people I ever heard using threats of violence during all of the negotiations were politicians from your country who talked about the difficulty there would be along the border, even showing pictures of border posts being blown up.
“So I don't think that when you're talking about threats of violence being used in this whole process of exiting the EU that you should point the finger at the DUP. I think you need to look far closer to home, many of your own politicians who blatantly and cynically use violence and the threat of IRA violence along the border in order to get their own way.”
Threats
Mr Wilson said the very fact that the DUP had said the threats should stop was an indication that they did not wish “to use them”.
“But what the situation at the ports is now illustrating is that it is perfectly possible to have trade with the UK into Northern Ireland without any danger being caused to the EU's single market.
“I don't believe the checks are necessary — 90 per cent of the goods which are coming through the ports of Larne and Belfast at present are not going anywhere near the Irish Republic. It is entirely UK internal trade.”
