Speaking at the TUV party conference in Cookstown today Jim Allister said:
“Here we meet in safety, freedom and liberty while in the opposite corner of Europe we have the brutal oppression of free people, the murderous excesses of a tyrant and the cruel ravages of war. As a community that withstood the terror of the IRA – itself with Soviet tendencies – we salute the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people and pray God they may be delivered from the evil machinations of the war criminal Putin.
“Turning to more local issues We face into a most critical election In just 54 days – that’s shorter and more certain than a Jeffrey Donaldson deadline.
“Speaking of Jeffrey Donaldson I assure you I have had no transfer negotiations with Doug Bettie, because I don’t captain a sinking ship, but a sound vessel of principle, strength and integrity. Not riven by division and intrigue, but bound together in unity and purpose.
“I’m delighted that we have aboard, among our candidates, men like Harold McKee, Keith Ratcliffe and Trevor Clarke who gave up on the rudderless … to join the good ship TUV.
“Get behind these candidates… let’s wipe the smile of our naysayers and some ill informed, arrogant commentators who would write us off.
“I’ve news for our detractors, TUV is not in this election to make up the numbers, we are here to win. And when we do, Stormont will never be the same again!
“By winning we not only advance the cause of traditional unionism, but we keep some others honest, or as honest as they can be. Isn’t it remarkable how the rising polls for TUV induced others to harden their stand on the iniquitous Protocol.
“Our consistent stance on the Protocol is not election led .
“Principle, not expediency is our guide. TUV has led the way in legal and political challenge. Action, not dither.
“From the start we saw the Protocol for what it is:
• an instrument to break up the United Kingdom;
• device to leave NI, aligned with the Republic, under the foreign sovereignty of the EU;
• and designed to force an economic all-Ireland as a stepping stone to Irish unity.
“The most defining insight into the purpose and intent of the Protocol is that it decrees GB to be a foreign or third country. That lies at the very heart of what the Protocol is all about – partitioning the U.K., annexing us into the EU on a trajectory of ever widening divergence from GB and ever closer alignment with ROI.
“Complicity in implementing this Union-dismantling Protocol was total folly. Hence our opposition to the Poots Posts and the checks that bedded in the Irish Sea border. Sleep walking never ends well.
“We seen some remarkably ill-judged pontifications. None no more absurd than Doug Beattie’s suggestion that the answer to the Protocol was another north/south body to oversee it. That’s not unalterable rejection, that’s facilitation.
“In the same vein lies the delusion of ‘the best of both worlds’. Unfettered access to the EU’s shrinking market comes at the unpayable price of subjugation to EU laws, processes and court. Isn’t that the very thing we need to escape, not embrace? Isn’t that what ‘taking back control’ was supposed to be about.
“The essence of why the Protocol can never be acceptable or compatible with being an integral part of the U.K. It makes us subject to foreign jurisdiction – foreign SM, foreign Customs Code, a foreign VAT regime, all overseen by foreign laws and a foreign court. Such oppressive subjugation is not something anyone who cares about basic democratic accountability could ever contemplate, never mind advocate. Yet we have parties that take democratic in their title – like the SDLP – ready and eager to prostrate themselves before the EU and accept its yoke of bondage, ruled by laws we don’t make and can’t change.
“TUV was always clear that if the price of Stormont was implementing the Protocol, then it is a price no unionist can pay, or ever should have paid.
“This battle is not yet over and will not be until the EU gives up its ill-gotten sovereignty over us. We must cease to be part of a foreign single market, under a foreign customs code and VAT regime, all governed by foreign laws we don’t make and can’t change and overseen by a foreign court. Such is not compatible with being part of the United Kingdom. Hence this Protocol is irredeemable. It must go.
“Going forward, rely on those who called it right from the beginning. TUV is the real deal.
“Equally, TUV is the real deal on Stormont.”