Statement by TUV MEP candidate Jim Allister:
“Today’s agreement between the British and Irish Governments preserving the Common Travel Area regardless of the final shape of Brexit exposes yet another remainer lie.
“Over the last few years remoaners have been queuing up to claim that Brexit threatened the CTA. For example, in November 2018 Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson claimed:
“Brexit threatens the rights associated with the Common Travel Area which we warned about and now that’s being confirmed in a report by human rights organisations from north and south.”
“Sinn Fein’s Brexit Plan published in January stated:
“There is simply no international legal guarantee that the CTA will continue in its present form in the event of a no-deal Brexit.”
“Similarly in July 2017 Alliance’s Stephen Farry claimed:
“While there are hopes and expectations that the Common Travel Area will be maintained, it remains unclear how achievable preserving all of it will be in practice.”
“While the Alliance manifesto of 2017 stated that claims that
“the Common Travel Area predates the accession of the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland to the European Union, it can therefore survive the departure of those states from the EU neglects two key considerations.”
“And Stewart Dickson claimed that
“the Common Travel Area could become unworkable in the era of EU free movement, meaning that border and passport controls could have to be set up on the EU border with the Republic of Ireland” in May 2015.
“In fairness to remoaner politicians they were not alone in spreading this uniformed nonsense about the Common Travel Area. A report produced for the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in October 2018 claimed:
“In short, the CTA is written in sand, and its terms are much more limited than is often believed to be the case”.
“This saga, which ends with confirmation that the CTA stands – as I’ve long maintained it would – illustrates the extravagance and unreliability of Remainer claims and leaves some who now seek election with the egg of ignorance on their face.
“So, yet another Remainer scare story bites the dust.”