Labour’s Kate Hoey had harsh words for Brussels on Friday, saying the United Kingdom did not spend 30 years battling IRA terrorists in Northern Ireland so “jumped-up EU bureaucrats” could carve off the British province as the price of Brexit.

The veteran stateswoman, who has served as a London MP since 1989 but was born in Northern Ireland and educated in the Belfast Royal Academy and University of Ulster, was speaking at a Leave Means Leave rally, joining a cross-party line-up of entrepreneurs and politicians including Sammy Wilson for the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis, and former UKIP supremo Nigel Farage.

“We didn’t spend 30 years in Northern Ireland stopping IRA terrorists killing soldiers, police, and civilians in order to get a United Ireland, [only] to allow a few jumped-up EU bureaucrats and a complicit prime minister to try and do the same thing by the back door,” she declared.

“Even more ridiculous is that it would not even be in the economic interests of Northern Ireland who depend so much [on] their trade to and from Britain.

“Why is a British prime minister dancing to the tune of an Irish taoiseach?” she added, referring to Irish leader Leo Varadkar.” There’s no need for a hard border and there’s no need for a backstop.”

Leave Means Leave Rally LIVE from London https://t.co/BtkFkg1uAO — Leave Means Leave (@LeaveMnsLeave) December 14, 2018

The “backstop” which Miss Hoey referred to is a provision in Prime Minister Theresa May’s “worst deal in history” with the EU; an indefinite fallback arrangement under which Northern Ireland is annexed to the EU’s Customs Union and Single Market, and mainland Great Britain is joined to an effectively EU-controlled “single customs territory” — all and in order to keep the supposedly all-important open border with the Republic of Ireland free of customs checks.

Martin Selmayr, the “Monster of Brussels” who European Commission boss Jean-Claude Juncker recently swindled into place as head of the EU civil service, is said to be determined that “losing Northern Ireland [is] the price the UK [will] pay for Brexit”, regarding the country’s vote to Leave the European Union as a “personal insult”.

Thousands of British military personnel, police officers, politicians, and ordinary people were murdered during the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) terror campaign to break Northern Ireland off from the United Kingdom, but a majority of the Province’s residents want to remain British — rejecting union with the neighbouring Republic of Ireland by 98.9 percent on a turnout of 58.7 percent in a 1973 referendum.

"If the EU think that what the IRA couldn't achieve, they're going to achieve, they've got another thought coming to them." DUP MP Sammy Wilson says his party will vote against Theresa May's draft Brexit plan – because of the implications for Northern Ireland. pic.twitter.com/f5fUc5k7pP — Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) November 14, 2018

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery