Tag: David Ervine

It seems like no time ago that the DUP’s Sammy Wilson was loudly advising the British that “the blackmailing burghers from Brussels” and the “cheap political opportunists” from Dublin must be met with a “tough” response during the Brexit negotiations. Ian Paisley jnr likewise told the then Brexit minister that what was needed was to shout “No surrender” at the EU. The prime minister had bought its 10 parliamentary votes and, in defiance of her responsibilities to the Belfast Agreement, was acting as if the DUP was the one-party government of Northern Ireland. The timid have left you; your Lundys have betrayed you; but you have closed your gates.” He was referring, of course, to the siege of Derry in 1689, when the Protestant apprentice boys shut the gates of the walled city against the Catholic forces of King James. DUP leader Arlene Foster insisted that whatever else about Brexit, there must be “no border down the Irish Sea”. That, she said, was her party’s red line. Its British allies are the worst of the Brexit fanatics. He also claimed that this was “all about a punishment beating for the UK because they dared to leave the EU” and that the prime minister had permitted this. The party knew and had been told over and over that the Belfast Agreement made it inevitable that the backstop preventing a hard border would be included in any deal. All that matters is the old game of betrayal and defiance, the pathetic sectarian politics of “No surrender!”