Dublin silence on border checks highlights hypocrisy: Dodds

“The immigration checks on people crossing the border exposes the position of successive Irish governments on a so-called hard border on the island of Ireland as hypocrisy on stilts.

We were told repeatedly that there couldn’t even be a single camera on the border to check goods. Yet now it appears to be perfectly reasonable, according to the Irish, to have checks on cars, buses, lorries, for people, never mind goods.

it is frankly nauseating to be lectured by Dublin politicians and their nationalist fellow travellers about an open border and yet there isn’t a squeak out of them when it comes to the current checks carried out by the Irish authorities on their side of the border.

This activity is of course perfectly legitimate and in line with the status of the international border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Yet the existence of that border was denied when it came to the movement of goods and trade.

It was never intended that there would be a plethora of checks in any case for goods, but this illustrates that even if it were necessary, the Irish have no problem whatsoever when it comes to enforcing their interests.

It is high time the UK government asserted its sovereignty in relation to the imposition by the EU (urged on by the Irish government) of a sea border dividing one part of the United Kingdom from the other.

Such a border is not needed as there are solutions such as mutual enforcement which deals with the movement of goods between north and south.

These immigration checks by Irish officials illustrate that Dublin has absolutely no problem in principle with having checks on the border.

Where now Leo Varadkhar’s waving of pictures of border customs stations? Where now Sinn Fein and their mock sledgehammering of a brick wall?

It was always all politically devious tactics to divide the UK. Their hypocrisy has been well and truly exposed.”