The DUP’s Brexit spokesman was responding to an open letter to MPs from Northern Ireland businesses, claiming local firms are “hugely exposed to the economic fallout from leaving the EU with no-deal.”

“Local businesses believe that the failure to approve a deal with Europe on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU will have significant repercussions for the local economy. Such a scenario will both hinder indigenous and foreign direct investment, it would result in significant job losses and will stifle opportunities for the next generation across Northern Ireland,” the letter signed by many of the Province’s biggest employers states.

But responding to the letter, Mr Wilson urged businesses not to “fall into line with the Government’s attempt to foist a really bad deal on the UK”.

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Sammy Wilson MP

He said: “In the run up to the vote on leaving the EU which will take place on Tuesday, it is clear that there is a coordinated attempt to railroad MPs into accepting the toxic, Union-destroying, NI economy-damaging deal, which the Prime Minister had previously agreed with the EU.

“Last week the head of the Civil Service entered the political arena with his ham-fisted, chaos threatening letter and now we find that businesses in NI are engaging in the same tactic.

“What is particularly odd about the business letter is that first of all it concentrates on damage to the NI economy. This comes from a non-existent threat of infrastructure along the border, while ignoring the explicit terms of the withdrawal agreement. “Those terms would exclude NI businesses from having any benefit from trade agreements, which the UK might strike with the rest of the world, in the future and more immediately, it would make it difficult for firms to trade with the GB market.

“Secondly the letter ignores the role of the EU in the current impasse. Despite the Government of the UK rolling over to every demand the EU has made. EU negotiators have showed no flexibility at all to MPs across the political spectrum in Parliament. Indeed this week, (Michel) Barnier reinforced his inflexibility towards NI. He believes NI must be separated from the UK in future relationships with the EU.

“When it comes to flexibility we have already as a party, with our allies in the Conservative Party, sought to find a number of ways around the obstacles to a deal. We had suggested an end date to a UK wide backstop, at an early stage offered that the NI Assembly would be able to decide on the nature of the backstop and any implementation of EU rules in the UK. And only today Nigel Dodds along with a prominent ERG member has written in the Daily Telegraph suggesting how we can avoid a no deal.