THE DUP helped create the backstop "time bomb" which has allowed the Irish government a veto in Brexit talks, former UUP leader Lord Empey has claimed.
The peer, who served for eight years as a member of the EU Committee of the Regions in Brussels, said the controversial backstop was supported by the DUP, David Davis and Boris Johnson in December 2017 and "now comes back to haunt us".
"Now all of them are trying to distance themselves from the time bomb they created last year," he said.
"....There is no doubt that the question of the Irish border is being used by Brussels and Dublin as a battering ram in these talks.
"The level of trade on this island is tiny in European terms and everybody knows that no Irish Government could survive if it erected a physical barrier at the border. London has said it won't put up a border, so where is a hard border coming from?
"It's an Aunt Sally of an argument. There won't be a hard border unless Dublin and the EU choose to impose one."
Lord Empey said the EU has "no scruples in using the Irish Border question as a tool to protect themselves by keeping the UK tied as closely as possible to EU regulations thereby diminishing the ability of the UK to do deals outside the EU.
"What I find intolerable is the attempt by the DUP to pretend they had nothing to do with this - they had. They were taking credit for the amendments to the Joint Report last December and now it is coming back to bite us all."
