By David Thompson

Copyright newsletter

Gavin Robinson also takes aim at the Alliance Party over its support for “radicalised ideology” – and says a new Irish language commissioner will be under ministerial control, and is nothing like what Sinn Fein promised activists. The East Belfast MP says this year’s party conference will be about celebrating unionism – and has defended his party’s support for devolved institutions and the Irish Sea border deal which brought about their restoration. He said this year’s event will be “a showcase of our policies, our positions, our delivery, our focus on what we’re going to do over the year ahead”. Mr Robinson said the DUP is “the only unionist vehicle” with the “scale, the capacity and the skill” to deliver for Northern Ireland and strengthen the union. After becoming leader last year, Gavin Robinson U-turned on his party’s position on the Irish Sea border. After claims that it had been removed, the party accepted that it remained and that the underlying issues – like EU law – needed to be dealt with. Asked if the DUP should apologise for misleading the electorate on its claims about the trade border, he defended the Safeguarding the Union deal – saying that if it had been implemented in full the frontier would have been “fundamentally” altered – and accused the government of failing to honour its pledges. Critics pointed to the fact that it hadn’t fundamentally changed the Windsor Framework, and could not have reduced burdens imposed on business. But Mr Robinson defended it as progress – and said it was “never the sum total of the solution”. The Protocol also keeps certain EU human rights provisions applicable in NI. The DUP leader says there is a “risk” that NI could become a magnet for immigration – which he has highlighted in parliament – and has hit out at the approach from the Equality Commission (ECNI), accusing it of activism. “There’s a political activism which is not even slightly concealed on an issue such as this”, he said. He accused ECNI of “pushing their own agenda” by asking the High Court to rule on the definition of a woman in Northern Ireland – saying it is “totally absurd” that the term woman might be defined differently in Larne than in Stranraer. “It’s totally inappropriate, and you don’t have to stretch far back into the history of the past to see just how outrageously they positioned themselves on the case involved Asher’s bakery”, Mr Robinson said. With the prospect of a Reform UK government – and its policy of a UK withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – now appearing possible, the DUP leader was asked if some within his party are at risk of repeating the mistakes of Brexit by supporting Nigel Farage’s plans. “My colleagues and I have all spoken about on the proposals for ECHR – and there can be no solution which isn’t a whole UK solution”, he said. The DUP leader has re-iterated his party’s “common sense” position on transgender ideology – and says the “political and exclusionary” position of Belfast Pride was a “sad indictment of the principles and aims that they’ve always issued”. Asked whether homosexuality is still a moral issue for the party, and whether it has an issue with gay people – Mr Robinson said “manifestly, no”. “We have elected representatives who are gay, who are openly gay. It is how they are, but it’s not how they view the world. You join the DUP not because of your moral view, though loads of our members have very particular moral perspectives, including me… “But you join the DUP because you’re interested in the union. You join the DUP because you want to strengthen the relationship between NI and the rest of the UK… irrespective of sexual orientation”. Mr Robinson contrasted his party’s approach with that of the Alliance Party, which he claimed has become “totalitarian” rather than liberal – and “is no longer the party that many folks still vote for”. “There are Alliance voters… who are horrified by the position adopted, which really is quite extraordinary ideology, radicalised ideology, on trans issues… There’s a totalitarianism within the Alliance Party now, which is really extraordinary in what’s supposed to be a liberal party”, he said. Gavin Robinson says his party will use the Stormont institutions to deliver for unionism: “I could envisage a world in which the assembly wasn’t functioning. I would be to the detriment of unionists and the detriment of our ability to deliver, handing all power to a Westminster Government that has failed to deliver”.