Speaking at the annual TUV central dinner in Cookstown Jim Allister MP focussed on the upcoming Stormont vote on the continuance of the Protocol, warning it was a defining moment for the future of the Union.
In the course of his remarks Jim Allister said:-
“The Assembly vote in December will mark the embedding of the Union-dismantling Protocol and set in stone the condominium arrangements within which Stormont operates.
“It is astounding that any democrat could think it right to surrender the right of their constituents to have any say in the making of the laws in 300 key areas, but that is the essence of the democracy-surrendering vote whereby lawmaking powers in these 300 areas are surrendered to the EU, with their Parliament, not ours or the Assembly, making those laws which we then are bound by as an EU colony. The absurdity is compounded by the fact that MLAs will surrender control not even knowing what any of those laws will look like. It is a four year blank cheque to EU diktat.
“Of course, for nationalism the prize is that in these 300 areas Northern Ireland will be ruled by the identical laws as in the Republic, thus, easing the building of the stepping-stone all-Ireland economy they crave.
“For unionists, however, it is a dire step out of the United Kingdom.
“Equally, for unionists it poses the unavoidable choice of what now?
“The folly of returning to Stormont for the nothing of the ‘Safeguarding the Union’ is made all the more obvious by this vote, because if that foolhardy step hadn’t been taken this vote would really have put it up to non-unionists as to whether they were going to vote for the continuing absence of Stormont or to reject that which was preventing its return, the Protocol. But, sadly, that leverage was surrendered and it is now unionists who are in the bind of living under foreign EU/ROI rule.
“Once Stormont accepts 4 more years of dismantling of the Union and continues blindly to operate that very thing, then recovery of the Union becomes even more difficult, if not impossible. Carrying on as if Stormont has not become a tool of EU and ROI rule should not be an option, but, sadly will be for those whose unionism is secondary to power, any power!
“Accepting Stormont under Protocol rule is to accept that never again will Northern Ireland be a full part of the United Kingdom. That is where rollover unionism has brought us and they will continue us down that road to destruction if after the December vote they continue as if nothing has happened.
“Unionists should not be assisting the haemorrhaging of the Union, but to operate a Stormont under Protocal diktat is exactly what they will be doing.”