The Border between Northern Ireland and the Republic will “be part of the reset” between the EU and UK in the event of a Reform UK government, one of the party’s MPs has said.
Danny Kruger told the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party conference in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, that his party would “complete the unfinished business of Brexit”, after colleague Robert Jenrick visited Belfast with DUP leader Gavin Robinson.
Kruger said Reform is not “picking sides” in Northern Irish politics and “supports the commitment of every unionist to sustain the union”.
The East Wiltshire MP was former British prime minister Boris Johnson’s political secretary for a period in 2019 and defected from the Conservatives to Reform in September last year.
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Asked by reporters about the implication of Reform’s pledge to bring down immigration for the open border on the island of Ireland, Kruger said: “We clearly have a problem.”
He added: “Our primary mission is to stop the small boats, stop the influx of illegal immigrants coming across the English Channel, but we’re very aware that when we do that the smugglers and the gangs will start looking for other avenues.
“There clearly is an open border, an open back door to the United Kingdom, that is the North-South Border in Ireland.
“So yes, this is something we have to take very seriously. It’s going to be part of the reset that we need to have with the EU and with the Republic if we win, and it’s absolutely unacceptable that illegal immigrants are allowed to come over the Irish Border.”
Kruger said that core to his party’s “project of restoration is the re-establishment of the union as a single, indivisible state, whole and entirely one sovereign border”.
Power-sharing institutions in Northern Ireland were not operational for around two years as the DUP boycotted in protest against post-Brexit trading arrangements, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol and later the Windsor Framework.
Kruger said he voted for the protocol because he believed “it would be quickly dealt with”, but went on to vote against the Windsor Framework, saying former prime minister Rishi Sunak “broke faith with Northern Ireland and with the whole of the UK” with that arrangement.
He added that “the principle of cross-community consent has been junked”.
“This is the final and the greatest betrayal of Brexit with the Belfast Agreement itself and of the rights of Ulster agreed all the way back in 1922, so that’s where we are,” he said.
He added: “We want to work with you and your allies to ensure that if, as I fervently hope, we have a Reform government, we are able to complete the unfinished business of Brexit.
“Not to reopen all those wounds from five years ago or so, but simply and courteously to agree a new deal with the EU that respects our sovereignty, the sovereignty of the whole of the UK.”
TUV leader Jim Allister said Kruger would “be a far better occupant of Hillsborough Castle than the one we have at the moment” and described him as “a man whose ear it’s well worth bending”. – PA