Ann Widdecombe tells TUV - Reform UK rally in Dromore that a 'mammoth fightback' has started

​She was speaking in the packed Orange Hall at an event organised by the local TUV. The ex-MP opened her remarks by saying: “In case you didn’t know it, I’m a Roman Catholic, and I’m here tonight in an Orange Hall” – to cheers from the audience.

She compared the event to being cheered in working men’s clubs at the start of the Brexit campaign. “Then I knew that people were uniting in a cause – and that cause was Brexit. And now, we have all united – whatever our differences may be. We can all unite in a cause and that cause is the Union”.

She said the political fight on the Protocol cannot be over “while there is no proper Union” and claimed there are no other unionist parties either in Great Britain or here other than her party and the TUV.

“It isn’t going to be done overnight, there’s been too much selling already” but said many big movements haven’t happened overnight. She added: “What we see now is the start of a mammoth fightback. That is why we have joined up. That is why we are here tonight. That is why I’m standing here in an Orange Hall”.

“Whatever our other differences, the one thing that unites us is an absolute determination that we will not rest – and I mean we will not rest – until Northern Ireland is once again a genuine part of the UK with no interference whatever from Brussels”, Miss Widdecombe said.

On her party’s link up with TUV, she said: “We’re trying to save the Union basically, we believe that it’s quite wrong that a part of the UK is still subject to EU law that the rest of the UK isn’t, and Northern Ireland is an integral part of the UK and should be treated as such. I think it is excellent because we’re both fully committed to the Union.

“We would have hoped originally that the DUP would have shown an equal determination but they haven’t. The TUV has.”

TUV leader Jim Allister welcomed Mr Habib, Ms Widdecombe and Baroness Hoey as “our compatriots and fellow UK citizens”.

He hailed Mr Habib as “the man who stood up for the Union when others were nowhere to be seen” and criticised the DUP’s backing of the Windsor Framework”.

Mr Allister said: “TUV/Reform UK is in the business of reuniting the United Kingdom”.

“Reunification is our cause. Not for us, half in half out of the UK, half ruled by British laws, half ruled by foreign EU laws.

“The first step for unionism in reuniting the United Kingdom is rejecting the protocol-accepting DUP/Donaldson deal.

“That opportunity will come in the general election when TUV/Reform will stand out from the crowd of protocol implementers.

“Our alignment with Reform UK is about awakening pan-unionism across the entire UK. Pan-nationalism campaigns for Irish unification.

“It’s time for a pan-unionist demand for reunification of the United Kingdom.”

Reform UK deputy leader Ben Habib said he is saddened by a “split” within political unionism and vowed to create a “pan-UK political force”.

He said it is said that unionist unity on the protocol has gone – and referencing comments by the DUP leader Gavin Robinson – he said “I am now a politician in my own right, an Englishman in Northern Ireland”. The DUP leader had previously criticised politicians flying in from England to complain about the Protocol.

Mr Habib said he is “bringing a message of political unionism across Northern Ireland and Great Britain”.

He said: “I’m excited about it. I’m saddened by the way that there is a split within political unionism in Northern Ireland.

“I was very pleased when we all stood together, the DUP, UUP and TUV but if you have political parties, so-called unionist political parties that don’t even recognise there is a border in the Irish Sea, you’ve got a problem.

“So I’m saddened by that but also very excited by the prospect now of this pan-UK political force.”

Baroness Kate Hoey said that the DUP had “radically” changed its position on the Irish Sea border. “I stood on platforms where even Jim [Allister] was out-shouted by the then leader of the DUP – in terms of his ‘principled’ opposition to the Protocol”.

She said she could have accepted – even if she disagreed with – an argument that Stormont should come back. But Baroness Hoey said “there was lying” about the issue.