Willie Hay claims Kate Hoey ‘totally and absolutely wrong’ in criticism of Jeffrey Donaldson

The DUP grandee reacted angrily to the former Labour MP’s comments during a debate on the Windsor Framework (Constitutional Status of Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024 in the British House of Lords.

She stated: “The reason that Sir Jeffrey [Donaldson] and others turned their fire on Jim Allister [the TUV leader and North Antrim MLA] and others was to hide the embarrassment of not having kept their promises. They had shredded all their promises.”

The former Stormont speaker responded: “I remember that for two years we said to the British Government and the European Union that the protocol was not working and that we needed to deal with certain issues in the protocol.

"They totally and absolutely ignored us while we were working in the Assembly. My party leader has been criticised here tonight by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and some other people, which is totally and absolutely wrong. Their assumptions on the issue need to be challenged.”

The one-time Derry mayor told peers he was not a ‘Johnny-come-lately’ and had fought for the union for half a century.

"I want to say in closing that it is time for unionists to get on the front foot rather than indulge in wishful thinking. We can bank the gains and campaign for further progress while addressing the bread and butter issues that matter to the people of Northern Ireland; or we can throw them away without a strategy in the hope of securing the untenable.

"I have been in the unionist cause for over 50 years; I am not a Johnny-come-lately to this cause. There are some people in this Chamber who have come late to the cause. I have not, and there are many colleagues here like me who have been fighting this cause for well over 50 years,” he said.

During the debate he said he hoped the Government had ‘learned the lesson’ of the Stormont hiatus because ‘it took some time to build trust with this Government’.

Jeffrey Donaldson tells Rishi Sunak: 'Rewrite' the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and Protocol