Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister:-
“Lord Bew’s soft interview with Mark Carruthers on Sunday Politics amounted to an exhortation to unionism to roll over on the Protocol and operate it, while ignoring its seismic constitutional change and transitioning of NI into an economic all-Ireland.
“To make his case he had to grossly downplay the constitutional realities of the Protocol. Hence his running away from the constitutional and anti-democratic import of being governed by foreign EU laws and the fundamental subverting of Art 6 of the Acts of Union.
“His dismissive approach to the Acts of Union was telling. Whereas he pointed to our representation in Parliament as the living legacy of the political union achieved by the Acts of Union, he studiously ignored the other facet of the Union so spectacularly thrashed by the Protocol, namely, the economic union based on the unfettered trade guarantee of Art 6. Indeed, he wrongly characterised the problem as just needing a few fixes such as in veterinary medicines. The problem is much more fundamental than that.
“The constitutional reality is that by reason of being under the EU’s Customs Code Northern Ireland is regarded as EU territory and GB as a foreign country! Yet, Lord Bew wants Unionism to accept and implement that constitutional obscenity and at the same time accept that much of our economy and trade should be governed by the same laws as the Republic of Ireland, namely those of the EU Single Market – and, Unionists should administer that in Stormont.
“So, in the interests of refusing to being a party to dismantling the Union, Unionists must reject Lord Bew’s honeyed contentions.”