Sammy Wilson: The DUP will back the immediate triggering of Article 50 to honour the vote to leave the EU

East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson has said that the DUP will support the immediate triggering of Article 50 leading to the United Kingdom leaving the European Union.

Mr Wilson was speaking during a debate on the second reading of the Bill to trigger Article 50

He said: "Myself and my colleagues will be voting to support the acceptance of this bill and start the process of the UK’s exit from the EU. I have always believed it was wrong to permit a foreign authority to make laws for our country, my constituents backed that view by a huge majority in the referendum and it is the duty of this Parliament to honour the promise which they gave the British people when a referendum was granted the result of which was to bind the government.

"I reject the excuses which are being made by those opposed to this bill they are thin covers for their distain of the democratically expressed views of the electorate.

"The claim that since N.I. and Scotland voted to remain and therefore should have the ability to veto the decision made by the people of the UK as a whole or at least be able to have separate arrangements, would be extremely damaging to the union.

"First of all this was a national referendum on an issue which is not devolved and the referendum was run on that basis. If 1.8m people in N.I. could veto the will of the other 70m people of the UK then it would not be long before quite rightly questions would be asked about the wisdom or value of having the N.I. tail wagging the UK dog. As a unionist I reject the suggestion that we should be able to damage the union in this way.

"The second argument is the arrogant claim that we don’t know what we are voting for. The remain campaign did their best to scare the life out of the electorate with their claims of immediate economic collapse, emergency budgets, pension disaster, job losses etc yet people still voted to leave and of course none of the predictions came anywhere near being true. When they voted to leave they voted to restore sovereignty to our parliament and to permit our businesses to exploit the opportunities in the growing economies across the world. This meant leaving the single market and the customs union and this was always made clear. Recently the PM has spelt out what we are looking for in negotiations in a 6000 word speech and this will now be presented in a White paper what more do the veto wielders want.

"Those especially the Lib dems who claim we are damaging the future of our young people have a cheek. They didn’t think about young peoples future when they went against manifesto promises and voted for tutition fees or lumbered future generations with debt repayments as a result of their reckless spending policies.

"Future generations will thank us when a liberated economy free of the shackles of the declining EU, benefits from new global trade deals, expanding regulation free firms and dynamic investment strategies to modernise our economy."