Statement by TUV Strangford spokesperson Councillor Stephen Cooper:
“With the second reading of the Protocol Bill today it is worth reflecting on how we got to this point.
“Grassroots loyalism deserves credit for creating and sustaining pressure through peaceful protests. But for that groundswell of opposition to the Irish Sea Border Unionists who had operated the Protocol would have continued to do so.
“The 7.6% of the electorate which went out and cast their first preference vote for a TUV – No Sea Border candidate in the recent Assembly election will rightly feel that at least their concerns are at long last being heard at Westminster. But for the surge in TUV support at the polls this Bill would not be making its way through the legislative process.
“However, now is not the time for complacency or for Unionism to weaken. Even with this legislation on the statute book the Sea Border will remain – something which is conceded in the document produced by the Tory Party’s Brexit Star Chamber. Additionally, EU laws will still be operable in Northern Ireland and while the Bill provides for regulations to make changes these can similarly be reversed – assuming they are ever made.
“We must maintain the pressure on HMG to eradicate the Union subjugating Protocol in its entirety. No tinkering and no mere amendments.
Full sovereignty must be reestablished for this part of the United Kingdom.”