Commenting today, Lord Empey said, "Whenever Peter Robinson intervenes at a critical time in politics, one knows that something is up! He has been launched, like a political distress flare, to help the DUP find its way out of the cul-de-sac into which it has led itself and unionism over the last few years.

"Much of what Peter said has been put forward by Doug Beattie over the last 22 months. The Stormont boycott has been a failure. The Windsor Framework and the Protocol before it have been thrust upon Northern Ireland because of a botched Brexit negotiation. The DUP were the prime movers in the headlong charge into Brexit without any plan for how the border issue was to be dealt with and followed the ‘pied piper’ Boris Johnson into the train wreck that Brexit has become for Northern Ireland.

"The DUP has railed against the border in the Irish Sea, which they foolishly welcomed on 2^nd October 2019 when Johnson proposed it. They could have stopped Boris in his tracks then as they were propping up his government in Parliament but failed to do so. Arlene Foster has said that it was her greatest regret that she did not pull the plug on their deal with Johnson at that stage. The people of Northern Ireland have been paying for this blunder ever since."