TUV leader Jim Allister has written to the Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service following press reports about a document produced by the Executive Office which suggested border checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Commenting Mr Allister said:
“If – and my letter is premised on that caveat – reports of its content are accurate I am dismayed that as Head of the NICS Mr Sterling would set his hand to seeking to facilitate a trade border down the Irish Sea between this part of the UK and the rest of the nation. What authority does he have to seek to disrupt the economic and trading cohesion of the United Kingdom? Indeed, why would Mr Sterling have any such inclination?
“The national decision of our United Kingdom is clear: we are leaving the EU Customs Union and Single Market. The trading arrangements this paper seems to embrace would effectively treat Northern Ireland as if it continued within the EU. There would be nothing to distinguish Northern Ireland as part of a non-EU member from the Republic of Ireland as an EU member, with Northern Ireland businesses selling to GB, and vice-versa (equally important), required to give notice of such trade and be subjected to checks. This would be wholly destructive of the UK single market, which matters most to our economy.
“Preserving the UK single market is what is “infinitely preferably”!
“Impediments to trade within our own nation would not only be intolerable but prejudicial to the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom.
“Those with malevolent intent towards the very existence of Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, have long sought to exploit Brexit to drive a wedge between Northern Ireland and GB. To find the NICS helping them on with it is intolerable.
“To then find even the language of such advocates of denying a full and equal Brexit to Northern Ireland deployed is appalling. Loose talk about “the risk of a return to violence” is the stuff of republicanism.
“If, as Mr Sterling seems to have suggested, border checks were established at the Irish Sea ports, then, they would be effectively EU frontier posts, no doubt with an EU presence.
“To all intents and purposes the EU’s writ would run throughout the island of Ireland, which is the very antithesis of Brexit for this part of the UK.
“I have requested absolute clarity from David Sterling on this issue.”
You can read a report on the document here.