DUP MP Sammy Wilson has said his party needs to see the final form of the Government’s legislation on the Northern Ireland Protocol before deciding whether to support it.
The DUP has refused to support the restoration of powersharing institutions at Stormont as part of its protest against the protocol.
Mr Wilson told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme: “Firstly, we have to see the legislation in its final form.
“Secondly, what we see today will not necessarily be what comes through the process in the House of Commons and House of Lords.
“It is always subject to amendment and that will be very important before we can give our support to it.
“Thirdly, it is enabling legislation. It states that ministers will do certain things, but we don’t know what those things are because they come in subsequent legislation.”
He added: “We are at the first stage; we are pleased that the Government at least is recognising there is an issue, that they are bringing forward legislation in the face of the EU’s intransigence to deal with the problems.”
Mr Wilson has said reports that the Government expects his party to restore powersharing at Stormont before Northern Ireland Protocol legislation passes through the House of Lords are not correct.
He said: “I think it would be very foolish to try and engage in that kind of blackmail.
“That conversation has not been had. The Government is pushing for us to go back into the Assembly; we have been making it quite clear that the Assembly would be dysfunctional as long as the protocol is in place because it has no consent.
“We have been urging them to make sure that the legislation addresses the issues that we have highlighted and others have highlighted.
“If those are addressed and the legislation goes through the process then of course we are more than happy to go back into the Assembly.”
He added: “We have said we will make our assessment of this legislation as it goes through, but I think, when it comes to good faith, the people who need to demonstrate good faith are the Government.”
Boris Johnson insisted that resolving the Northern Ireland Protocol problems is “relatively simple”.
Defending the legislation to effectively override parts of an international treaty as a “bureaucratic change”, the Prime Minister told LBC Radio: “It’s the right way forward. What we have to respect – this is the crucial thing – is the balance and the symmetry of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.
“We have to understand there are two traditions in Northern Ireland, broadly two ways of looking at the border issues. One community at the moment feels very, very estranged from the way things are operating and very alienated.
“We have just got to fix that. It is relatively simple to do it, it’s a bureaucratic change that needs to be made.
“Frankly, it’s a relatively trivial set of adjustments in the grand scheme of things.”
Mr Johnson disagreed with claims that the move breaks international law, arguing that “our higher and prior legal commitment as a country is the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and to the balance and stability of that agreement”.
