Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“I am greatly concerned by the muddled thinking and disingenuous spin which is attaching to the promotion of all-Ireland sectoral arrangements in the context of a Brexit Deal.
“Let’s be clear, any all-Ireland arrangement necessitates regulatory alignment with EU rules for this part of the U.K. within the affected sector(s). That makes NI a rule taker from Brussels and subjects us in those areas to the supremacy of the European Court of Justice. In short, it would be the EU writ that would run, not the U.K. writ within that sector(s).
“But regulatory alignment is a two sided thing. It equally requires checks on goods entering the zone to ensure compliance with EU single market rules. Thus an Irish Sea Border for those goods is unavoidable. Checks into GB will be equally unavoidable if GB is to protect against its market being flooded by EU goods through the back door of Northern Ireland.
“None of this is compatible with a one nation Brexit.
“But, it doesn’t end there. Because the EU operates its own Customs Union tariffs are put on imports, which in agri-food products are excessively high – up to 40%. If NI produce is to avoid such, then, NI would have to be treated, not as a third country, but as part of the customs territory of the EU, thereby, in those sectors, effectively removing it from the U.K. Customs Union. (I believe this breaches Art 6 of the Act of Union.)
“Again, to enforce the EU Customs Union and to avoid the flooding of the GB market with EU goods which have come in through Ireland, north or south, a two-way tariff regime would have to operate in the Irish Sea. Once more the mantra of leaving as one nation is decimated and the fiscal unity of the U.K. destroyed.
“The inevitable process of divergence from the U.K. and assimilation into an all-Ireland would follow. Hence, the ‘slippery slope’ I’ve been warning against and the imperative of the U.K. leaving as one nation.”