Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“Those eager to talk up the NISRA trade figures for 2021 conveniently ignore three compelling facts:
1. The claimed percentage increase in GB trade is in comparison with 2020 whose figures were depressed by Covid.
2. The full impact of the Protocol is blunted by the grace periods and the fact that the EU regulation requiring the passing on the cost of the checks to business is not yet operative.
3. The £300m Business Support Service is, for now, shielding businesses from the full cost of Protocol paperwork.
“The figures released do confirm that we purchase almost five times the value of goods from GB as opposed to ROI, hence, the absurdity of an impeding border in the Irish Sea.
“And with £52B of our £77B of annual sales being internal to NI, the Protocol premise of goods coming from GB to service our manufacturing being ‘at risk’ of proceeding into ROI is itself a false premise.
“However, the overriding constitutional consequences of the Protocol are unaffected by the NISRA figures. The disapplication of the Act of Union guarantee of having our trade on an ‘equal footing’ with GB, the treatment of GB as a third or foreign country and our subjection, colony-like, to foreign legislation are all issues which render the Protocol irredeemable for any unionist.”