Baroness Kate Hoey defends speech about Windsor Framework after UUP Doug Beattie blasts her 'link to Nazi regime'

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Windsor Framework is a UK-EU deal which is intended to resolve unionist objections to the NI Protocol.

However the DUP say fundamental problems remain with it and are continuing to boycott the Powersharing Executive as a result - meaning Stormont remains suspended.

Speaking in the House of Lords on Wednesday, former Baroness Hoey said: "If Stormont goes back with this present Windsor Framework, it would be almost like what happened in France during the war with the Vichy Government: all those MLAs would be collaborators with a kind of colonial Government, taking foreign laws from a foreign legislature...".

But UUP leader Doug Beattie slammed her speech, saying the return of devolved government is needed to secure the union and challenge the weaknesses of the WF.

"To link that to Nazi regime is pathetic," he said. "I ask all unionist leaders, political and civic, to distance themselves from these words."

This prompted loyalist activist Jamie Bryson to rush to her defence.

" As ever, Beattie [is] first out of the traps to criticise unionists," he said. "I think unionist politicians should be urging all unionists to distance themselves from the Union-subjugating UUP!"

But the UUP leader hit back. "This pathetic excuse of a person has been putting unionist against unionist for years," he responded. "Now he is supporting unionists being referred to as Nazi collaborators. Damn right I’ll criticise it."

Baroness Hoey told the News Letter on Thursday that she had nowhere used the term "Nazi" in her Westminster speech.

What she meant, she said, was that MLAs who go back into the assembly under the WF "are effectively going back into what is really a kind of semi colony of the EU".

She added: "They will have to implement any EU laws coming through and that is very similar to what happened in the Vichy government - it has nothing to do with Nazis as such. And I stand by that."

Mr Beattie told the News Letter he was standing over the remarks he had made on social media.

But Mr Bryson said his comments were disappointing.

"His outburst was quite disappointing and I think he ought to come to terms with the reality of what he is advocating, and that is that unionists implement the subjugation of the Union."

TUV spokesman Sammy Morrison added: "Rather than being angered about how Baroness Hoey's comments have been editorialised, people should read what she actually said. It is undeniable that Northern Ireland is being treated as a colony of the EU rather than part of the UK.

"Restoring Stormont - as the judgement in Rooney vs Poots made clear - means agreeing to implement the Protocol. Ministers in any restored Executive would therefore be required by law to implement laws made by foreign institutions."

He pointed out that TUV chairman Jordan Armstrong used the term Vichy government in relation to the protocol a year ago, and that party leader Jim Allister used it at his party conference last weekend.