Statement by TUV East Londonderry spokesperson Jordan Armstrong:
“Michael Gove’s letter to the European Commission requesting longer grace periods for supermarkets and other proposals which tinker at the edges of the Protocol is pathetically weak. Mr Gove is not stupid. He knows that the Protocol is incompatible with the Act of Union. He knows that what he suggests merely kicks the can down the road in relation to some of the issues.
“This does not address the core of the problem – the existence of the Protocol which partitions the United Kingdom.
“Longer lead in periods are merely a stay of execution for some of the links which bind the UK together. The EU, which threated our supply of vaccines just a few days ago, should not be begged for a mere extension for the grace period for medicines.
“The reality is that for as long as we are left in a foreign single market, under a foreign customs code, in a foreign VAT regime and subject to foreign laws which we cannot change overseen by a foreign court then we are no longer an integral part of the United Kingdom.
“We need the Government to take its responsibilities to the constitutional integrity of one UNITED Kingdom seriously.
“No Unionist should tolerate this pathetically weak request as a remotely adequate starting point. The Protocol has to go and I trust there will be the robust, sustained political action necessary to drive home this message to Her Majesty’s Government.”