Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“Everyone should be clear that any acceptance – howsoever processed – of EU single market rules in any sector of the Northern Ireland economy would result in consequential Irish Sea checks for that sector once such rules are at variance with existing U.K. rules. Moreover, the ECJ would be the supreme authority in respect of those rules.
“So, the notion that under such an arrangement we would be leaving as one nation is nonsense.
“Likewise, the suggestion that such divergence would be subject to Assembly control is likely to prove wholly fictional. Even if the EU accepted a Stormont veto on its rules (highly unlikely), the will to resist such rules would, I fear, fade among those desperate to cling to office in a restored Stormont once Sinn Féin again threatened to bring the house down.
“Ultimately, the choice facing the DUP is to hold tenaciously to the principle of a one nation Brexit or start slithering down a slippery slope of divergence. The mantra that ‘we joined as one nation, and must leave as one nation’ has united all Unionists. It should not be compromised.”