Sammy ​Wilson: Government must honour ‘meagre’ deal offer - as the DUP MP questions Tory sincerity

The East Antrim MP was appointed to Westminster’s European Scrutiny Committee this week – where he raised the issue of EU legislation which had not being notified to Stormont’s scrutiny body.

“When the Cabinet Office withholds information about EU regulations until after the time when anything can be done about them, you’ve got to call into question their sincerity in operating some parts of the deal”, he said.

He said Westminster colleagues were appalled by the “cavalier” attitude of the government.

“There are still a lot of things they haven’t delivered in terms of legislation – and in terms of the checks”.

Asked if the regulations which have been laid by the government so far are capable of stopping checks, Mr Wilson said: “First of all only time is going to test that.

“But we know there are huge areas which are going to be exempt from any checks anyway”.

He added: “We will only know once September comes and the new arrangements are in place just how effective the promises which have been made are going to be.

“I still have my reservations because you don’t spend nearly 200 million pounds on checkpoints if you’re not going to do some checking”.

He said the DUP’s role will be to ensure that the promises which have been made by the government are honoured.

Asked where the DUP should go in the event that its deal with the government is fully honoured, Sammy Wilson said “I think that we’ve still got to insist – and we’ve made it quite clear that we’re going to insist – that the government moves further to ensure that we’re fully part of the United Kingdom.

“We’ve always made it clear that there’s still work to be done and there’s still issues to be resolved”.

He said the party’s current deal isn’t the end goal. “We’ve never made any secret of that fact that’s not the end object.

“We are a unionist party and we expect us [Northern Ireland] to be treated as part of the Union”.