Speaking to TUV’s Central Council, meeting in Lisburn on Wednesday evening, Jim Allister warned that if unionism returned to Stormont without the core constitutional and economic damage of the Protocol reversed, then, the Union would never be fully restored and, instead, the Protocol’s all-Ireland trajectory would be turbo charged.
“A deal that sells short on the vital constitutional issue by leaving Art 6 of the Acts of Union in suspension, because of the supremacy and applicability of EU law and their Customs Code, will not just cement the Protocol but aid its implementation – whatever the diversionary window dressing.
“Lord Dodds was right when he recently said there is but one chance to get this right.
“Whatever the desire of some to get back to Stormont, it must not be at any price or on the pretence of change which does nothing to alter the fundamentals of the Protocol. Talking up the frailties and inadequacies of Direct Rule, while it might serve as a diversionary tactic, can be no excuse or cover for going back to Stormont to implement foreign law – the same single market law as the Republic – and live under an Irish Sea border.
“I trust strength, not weakness, will continue to denote the stance of unionism.”