TUV leader Jim Allister told an anti-Protocol rally in Lurgan tonight that any unionist who comes to terms with the Protocol is embracing transition out of the United Kingdom and into an Irish Republic.
“Such is the fundamental assault made by the Protocol on our constitutional position that is irreconcilable with meaningful membership of the U.K.
“The core premise of the Protocol is that GB is a foreign country and that Northern Ireland, in trading terms, is an integral part of the EU on what is to be the economically integrated island of Ireland.
“The declaration of GB as a ‘third’ or foreign country cuts to the very heart of the Union. Little wonder the Court of Appeal admitted the Protocol has subjugated Art 6 of the Acts of Union – the very basis of the economic union of the U.K.
“It is because of this defining designation of GB as a foreign country that we have the folly of the Poots Posts imposing checks on goods from the rest of the U.K. Such customs checks – shamefully overseen by a DUP minister – are the physical manifestation that now when moving goods from GB to NI they are moving from the sovereign territory of the U.K. to the sovereign territory of the U.K. What a shocking and unbearable assault on our proclaimed position as a part of the United Kingdom!
“Thus, any unionist who finds nothing to protest about within the Protocol and who, indeed, denigrates protests and protestors, sadly, but clearly, does not get the Protocol or the its Union-dismantling synergy.
“Unionist voters who are dismayed by such complacency can, and should, express that disappointment by how they deploy their preferences in the election. Now is a time for strength, not weakness.”