[https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/brexit/dup-plain-stupid-in-its-economic-policy-says-retired-senior-civil-servant/a78669868.html](https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/brexit/dup-plain-stupid-in-its-economic-policy-says-retired-senior-civil-servant/a78669868.html)
**Colin Lewis derides party’s support of Brexit and its decision to boycott Stormont**
The DUP has been “plain stupid” in any economic plan to support Brexit and later boycott devolved government, a retired senior civil servant has claimed.
Writing in [today’s Belfast Telegraph](https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/comment/why-the-finger-of-blame-for-economic-vandalism-should-point-to-the-dup/a1933824472.html), Colin Lewis, who was deputy permanent secretary at the Department for the Economy in 2020, says there has been “little logic” in the DUP’s decision to leave government.
In his career, Mr Lewis also held roles in the departments of Finance & Personnel, Agriculture & Environment, Justice, and Economic Development. He is also a former managing director of corporate services at Invest NI.
Mr Lewis said that the prospect of job losses at further education colleges, resulting from budget cuts imposed by Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris, was ultimately a result of DUP policy.
“It seems that one consequence of the DUP’s cunning plan is to impose further economic pain and woe on the people of Northern Ireland, having previously been party to helping to create the circumstances that led to the UK as a whole effectively voting for self-imposed economic sanctions and a sustained diminution in its overall wealth — AKA Brexit.”
But a DUP spokesman dismissed Mr Lewis’s critique.
“This is rubbish,” he said.
Mr Lewis said the DUP had been “stubbornly ignoring the economic downside” of its boycott.
“What makes this stance particularly bizarre is that the same party would have always claimed, or at least implied, that it is the ‘party for business’, as witnessed by the fact that since the restoration of devolution in 2007, its ministers — seven of them in total — have continually held the government’s economy portfolio.”
He said the DUP had been able to exploit a global economic upturn and gain positive public attention from investment successes, “notwithstanding that in reality they often played no significant role whatsoever in securing any of these”.
by Constant__18