Statement by TUV Ballymoney councillor Jonathan McCauley:
“The comments by Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron in relation to Gibraltar underscore the extent to which the UK has ceded sovereignty over Northern Ireland to Brussels.
“While the record of the current government wouldn’t fill anyone with confidence about their desire or ability to stand up for our national interests in Gibraltar, Lord Cameron did boast today that he “understands the meaning of sovereignty”. He claimed that the Government was defending this at least in part by ensuring that if the treaty with the EU was one the UK was to find it did not like it could leave. There is no such “termination clause” in the Protocol.
“Furthermore, Lord Cameron says his deal will not see Gibraltar adopting EU law on all manner of issues and that the European Court of Justice “won’t have direct read across” with the courts in Gibraltar left to made decisions. By way of contrast, when it came to both the legacy and Ruanda legislation, Acts of our sovereign parliament were ruled unlawful in Northern Ireland because of the primacy of EU law in this part of the UK.
“With Northern Ireland left in a place where there is currently no exit route from the clutches of the Protocol and governed by laws we do not make and cannot change and the European Court of Justice supreme, the logic of Lord Cameron’s comments are clear. The Government has indeed handed over sovereignty of this part of the UK to Brussels”.