The DUP’s Gavin Robinson and Sammy Wilson have lauded Donald Trump, saying the Irish Government is “panicked” by the new US administration.
The party leader interviewed his fellow MP on The Lion’s Roar podcast for the DUP’s YouTube channel.
They both claimed Mexico and Canada “had to U-turn and change their tune when it comes to tariffs”, with Mr Wilson saying: “Foolishly, the EU think that they can resist.”
He added that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer should distance himself from the EU “so that Britain doesn’t get impacted by it as well”.
A smiling Mr Wilson went on: “And I notice that the Irish are panicking already, sending envoys and people over to talk to American administrators and civil servants etc… trying to maybe disengage Ireland from some of this.”
Pointing to Dublin’s reluctance to accept taxes from tech giant Apple, he said it showed how “dependent” the Republic was on US investment.
Turning to St Patrick’s Day, they suggested some parties may be reluctant to travel to the US because of ill-feeling towards Trump.
Donald Trump and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar talk to journalists during St Patrick’s Day celebrations in the White House in 2020 during the president’s first term in office (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Mr Wilson added the DUP should be trying to turn the supporters of such parties against them if they boycott the annual event.
He said: “You talk about bigotry. They were quite happy to go over and meet Biden, even though Biden wore his anti-Britishness on his sleeve: ‘No orange feet in the White House’. ‘I don’t give interviews to the BBC because it’s a British Broadcasting Corporation’.
“We can’t claim in Stormont to be wanting to promote the economy and promote jobs for their constituents and promote a better standard of living for their constituents and then at the same time be silent on issues that may have a detrimental impact.
“And that’s, I think, where we should be challenging them every day and will challenge them every day on that. That, look, they may have these long-term republican aspirations but their own constituents… and I mean let’s turn their own constituents against them.
“If they’re not going to fight for their own constituents’ jobs and wellbeing and everything else because they don’t like the President of the United States, then let’s expose that.
“There are plenty of ways we can fight this battle.”
He remarked on how Trump had been in the news consistently since his inauguration — and “not in the most flattering terms”.
“He is having an effect on the United Kingdom already… I mean, I just love the way he does government, he makes government so exciting,” he said to giggles from Mr Robinson.
“We have a Prime Minister who makes the governing of the United Kingdom look like the most boring job in the world, and Trump makes the governing of the US look like the most exciting job in the world, and puts a bit of showbiz into it,” he added, mimicking Trump signing one of his many executive orders.
“‘Here’s a great law here’, signs it with a flourish. ‘Here’s the best one ever, here’s another cracker’.”
He also suggested Health Secretary Wes Streeting had been influenced by Trump, who was “setting the agenda”.
Wilson referred to Streeting “saying he would scrap all the equality, diversity and inclusion employment recruitment in the health service and they should stop worrying about ‘whiteness’ and everything else and get on with dealing with patients”.
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Mr Robinson interjected to say “before he entered parliament his (Mr Streeting’s) job was to promote the creation of diversity and equality officers within government departments” while at Stonewall. Mr Streeting worked for 18 months as head of education at LGBT rights charity Stonewall, where he worked to tackle homophobia in schools.
Last week he said diversity and inclusion in the NHS was being hampered by “misguided approaches” such as promoting “anti-whiteness”, but he added that he wanted to get back to the fundamentals of what equality means, and he stood by diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies at a time when they were under attack.
The East Belfast MP referred to those who are “in the midst of a crisis” and “slam a dead cat on the table, and everyone forgets about what the problem was”.
He said Trump had been doing that “every 10 minutes”, and on his inauguration day there were about “20 serious and significant policy announcements all in one press conference, and each of them could have dominated a news cycle for a week”.
News Catch Up – Sunday 9 February