Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“Having now had an opportunity to see the fiendishly complicated text of the Withdrawal Agreement, it amounts to a far more insidious betrayal of both Brexit and Northern Ireland than I had anticipated.
“At the national level it leaves us all shackled to the EU’s Customs Union, in patent repudiation of the essence of Brexit, and, additionally, for Northern Ireland it leaves us entrapped in both the Customs Union and the EU single market in perpetuity, with a resulting border down the Irish Sea inevitable. The crippling of Northern Ireland’s GB-linked economy will follow.
“Right from Article 4 it is clear this Agreement is built on the supremacy of EU law and continuing subservience to the ECJ. A manifestation of the importance of this arises with particular relevance for Northern Ireland at Article 14 of the NI Protocol where the determining jurisdiction of the ECJ is expressly proclaimed. Thus we will remain wholly subservient not just to the rules of the EU’s single market (in which we will have no say), but to their exclusive interpretation by the ECJ. We will not have left the EU but become a Brussels protectorate in the worst of colonial traditions.
“In due course GB can leave the EU Customs Union (when Brussels agrees) and develop its own single market rules, but not this part of the Kingdom. We are abandoned to the machinations of Brussels, including being locked into its VAT regime (Art 9 of Protocol) and EU state aid rules (Art 12 of Protocol).
“It is important to note that whereas there is proclaimed (Art 7 of Protocol) a right to unfettered access for NI goods to GB, very significantly, there is no such assurance of unfettered access for goods from GB to NI. What sort of Prime Minister could agree to such calculated economic apartheid within the UK, knowing such excludes NI from the benefit of any UK negotiated trade deals and induces divergence of our economies?
“It is abundantly clear from Art 7 of the Protocol that an Irish Sea border is intended, with the only commitment being to attempt “to the extent possible” to avoid controls at Irish Sea ports.
“Northern Ireland has been betrayed. Our only hope now is that this treacherous deal is defeated in the House of Commons. If not, then the template of this deal is clear – Northern Ireland is to be held in a waiting room till by its stealth Irish unification is obtained.
“It behoves every unionist – whether in Northern Ireland or Great Britain – to do everything possible to defeat this pernicious deal.”