NORTH Shropshire MP Owen Paterson has stayed away from voting for the government's EU/UK trade deal over fears for Northern Ireland.

Mr Paterson, who is a former Northern Ireland secretary, said he was “very torn” over the deal and vowed to abstain in his speech given to the House of Commons before the vote, which saw the Trade bill passed.

Mr Paterson believes the UK faces being divided by the passing of the trade bill, and pledged to keep fighting to esnure changes are made.

"Having worked for years for Brexit, I welcome our departure from EU rules, nine months after our formal exit," he said.

"However, I have reservations over some aspects of the Government’s future relationship deal and that is why I abstained.

"It has been my understanding since the end of 2019 that the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Withdrawal Agreement would be ended by the final agreement, but this is not the case.

"Therefore, Northern Ireland has not properly left the European Union.

"The fishing agreement is very unsatisfactory and I am also concerned about the many powerful bodies and committees created by the deal.

"It will take a huge political effort in the years ahead to correct these problems.'

Perior to the vote, he tiold the chamber: “Just a word of caution.

"I’m very pleased with this deal for GB, but I’m concerned that we have partnership councils, specialised committees, trade specialised committees, working groups.

“We’re going to need a really determined Government to make sure that we use that sovereignty properly and we really exploit it, nowhere more than the issue of fish.”

Referring to a scorecard analysis, he added: “The worry for me as someone who was shadow secretary in Northern Ireland for three years, the real secretary for two years, is that Northern Ireland fails.”

He said: “I will fight very hard. I’d love to vote for this today but I really can’t vote for a measure which actually divides the UK as a different regime on tax as part of the customs union that’ll be under the ECJ, single market etc.”