Northern Irish lawmaker Sammy Wilson MP told Breitbart New that, in the ongoing clash between the United Kingdom and the European Union, the EU is Russia and his region is Ukraine.
Mr Wilson, of the pro-Britain, socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), was speaking after reports emerged that British prime minister Boris Johnson is planning to use the war in Ukraine as an excuse to avoid standing up to the EU in Northern Ireland, which is believed to be abusing the powers it still has over it under Johnson’s Brexit deals.
“Given that the Government has not taken the EU on to date, there is every likelihood that the current crisis could be used as an excuse,” Wilson said, suggesting that “a determined government would use the current situation and the need for European cooperation at this vital time as a means to resolve the Northern Ireland Protocol” of the Brexit deal, which has left Brussels broadly in control of Northern Ireland’s customs and regulatory framework and imposed an excessively enforced internal border between the province and Great Britain.
“[T]he comparison between Northern Ireland and the Ukraine and the behaviour of the EU and Russia are very similar,” the DUP MP went on.
“Whilst Russia is attempting to take over a sovereign, independent Ukraine, the EU through the NI Protocol has sought to annex NI into its sphere of influence,” he explained.
“Whilst Russia has sought to subvert the democratic wishes of Ukrainians, the EU has ignored the total opposition of [British] unionists to the annexation of our country under the Protocol and will impose EU law on the people of NI without them having any say on those laws.”
Mr Wilson suggested that while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ins “Putin’s revenge on those who broke free from the USSR,” the European Union’s “annexation” of Northern Ireland is similarly “driven by their leaders’ wish to punish the UK for daring to break away from the EU.”
“Boris Johnston should make it clear that just as he has led the mission to protect the Ukraine, he has a duty as Prime Minister to protect the whole of the UK including NI,” he concluded.
On Sunday, Bow Group chairman Ben Harris-Quinney made similar comments to Breitbart News, suggesting that the Tory leader “needs to be reminded that Northern Ireland is his job, Ukraine isn’t.”
British government sources have signalled to the mainstream media that they are “unlikely” to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol — which would suspend it — in order to hammer out a less disadvantageous deal, suggesting that they believe the EU has to be allowed to have its way at Britain’s expense so that conflict in Europe is not exacerbated while the Ukraine crisis is ongoing.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who was put in charge of the Brexit settlement in Northern Ireland at start of the year, was an ardent Remainer during the EU referendum in 2016.
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