Extract from speech by TUV leader Jim Allister at Ballyclare Rally:-
“Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom is in a perilous place.
“Not only has the Protocol left us as EU territory, subject to its laws and court, with the Irish Sea border implementing the EU Customs Code designation of GB as a foreign country, but now even national laws on immigration are struck down because EU laws and rights take precedence to make NI an open house for migrants and asylum seekers. Any concept of ‘equal UK citizenship’ has been well and truly trashed.
“No one should underestimate the significance, both constitutional and political, of this week’s High Court judgement. Despite all the lies and deceit – repeated in the DUP’s laughingly called ‘Safeguarding the Union’ document – that the protocol applies only to trade, its reach, particularly Article 2, is colossal.
“When an Act of the supposedly sovereign parliament at Westminster can be subjugated by EU diktat, then nothing is beyond its sovereignty-grabbing reach. Mark my words, the Irish Sea border will not end with trade, it is fast becoming a people and political border as progressively Ireland is treated as one, all in dynamic alignment with the EU.
“Those who connived to put such despotic EU control upon us need to own what they have done. That includes not just the Tory Government but the DUP which has bought into Protocol implementation for the sake of governing with Sinn Fein in Stormont.
“The DUP/Donaldson Deal is not just tainted by its inherent dishonesty and false promise, but by its delivery of foreign EU rule, which when allied with Sinn Fein rule leaves the Union in alarming decline.
“In owning what it has done the DUP needs to disavow the Donaldsons Deal, in all its parts. Individual’s unease counts as nothing when the reality is collective endorsement. Muted personal dissent that is subservient to blind party loyalty, which ties every MP and MLA to the Deal, is meaningless. It won’t cut it! Meanwhile we are towed further and further out of the Union, as this week demonstrated. The Protocol tugboat is Dublin bound. It may have been given the dishonest gloss of ‘Safeguarding the Union’ and recruited new crew with First Mate Gavin standing in for Captain Jeffrey, but its Union-dismantling course remains.
“Now is a time for resolve and determination. It is that which brings us here tonight, determined that whoever else wilts we will not.
“The choice for unionism is clear. You can settle – as the UUP and DUP have – for never again being a full part of the UK, hobbling along under EU colonial rule, half in and half out of the Union, while making the occasion denunciation of that you are implementing. Or, unionism can determine to fightback, recover its leverage and refuse to be the patsies of EU rule.”