Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“Part of the deceptive salesmanship for the tainted Donaldson Deal was the pretence that their fight goes on to secure further unionist demands.
“Like the patently false claims that the Irish Sea border was gone with ‘zero checks, zero paperwork’, the claim of ongoing demands is equally false. The sad truth is that the DUP, once it gave up the only leverage it had, namely the Stormont Executive boycott, at the same time gave up resisting the Protocol and metamorphosed into Protocol implementers.
“Henceforth the DUP’s fight is a sham fight, just like the Donaldson surrender deal which changed not one word of the Protocol nor disapplied one syllable of EU law.
“The claims of Sir Jeffrey, now repeated by the Continuity leadership, that more would be obtained mirrors and adopts the UUP nonsense of fighting the Protocol from within an Assembly with no power or inclination to change one word of the Union-dismantling Protocol.
“Part of the honesty now required from the DUP leadership, in the aftermath of the tainted Donaldson Deal, is to end the dishonest pretence that they have now any interest other than that shared across the Stormont Executive of implementing the very thing they pledged to oppose, but now accept.
“TUV, however, with our shared vision with Reform UK of integrating, not dismantling, our Union, will continue to oppose every jot and tittle of the iniquitous Protocol and call out its implementers.”