DUP’s Ian Paisley to vote against Northern Ireland post-Brexit plan

The senior Democratic Unionist party MP Ian Paisley has confirmed he will vote against Rishi Sunak’s revised plan for post-Brexit trade arrangements in Northern Ireland, saying he expected his party colleagues to follow suit.

Speaking to the News Letter newspaper, the North Antrim MP said: “I am categorically voting against, and I would be surprised if my colleagues do not join me.”

Paisley had already said he did not believe the plan, sealed last month by Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, met the DUP’s seven tests on maintaining Northern Ireland’s status in the UK internal market, and he had been expected to vote against it.

But his comments reinforce expectations the wider DUP will also oppose the plan when it is put to a Commons vote on Wednesday, potentially meaning more strongly pro-Brexit Conservative MPs could rebel.

Both the DUP and the European Research Group (ERG), which represents Tory Brexit hardliners, have not yet given a formal verdict pending examination of the full legal text of the Windsor framework, as it is formally known.

Paisley said his examination of the full deal reinforced his initial view about the plan and its failure to address DUP worries. He said: “After taking time to study it and at least one legal opinion on it, and going through the details, and also having conversations and messages back and forward to the secretary of state, I am still of that opinion – that it doesn’t address any of our seven tests.”

Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, said on a visit to Washington DC a few days ago: “It is my current assessment that there remain key areas of concern which require further clarification, reworking and change as well as seeing further legal text.”

After a senior DUP source told the Sunday Telegraph the party was likely to vote against the government on Wednesday, several Tory MPs privately suggested they might follow suit.

Concerns have since grown among Conservative whips that some Tory MPs could also vote against or abstain – even though Labour’s support guarantees the motion will pass.

Anger is also rising within the ERG at ministers using a vote on a statutory instrument to implement the “Stormont brake”, which limits the imposition of new EU regulations in Northern Ireland, as a proxy for MPs to have their say on the whole deal.

The former deputy Commons leader Peter Bone said he was “very unhappy” about the statutory instrument vote being treated as MPs’ one chance to have a say on the Windsor framework.

“I’ve not been given a reasonable explanation as to why it’s being done that way,” he said.