Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“Today’s announcement leaves us no further forward than when the Government published its paper last summer. We have a mere promise to act, no actual substance. With Westminster going into its summer recess shortly anything of substance will be put on the long finger and all the while the Protocol will continue to erode our place within the U.K.
“No Unionist could possibly contemplate a resumption of Stormont on such flimsy assurances from a Government which has failed to deliver on the Protocol so many times in the past. Having brought the Government to this point it would be utter folly to proceed with the nomination of a Speaker to the Assembly let alone the establishment of an executive. It is telling that the Prime Minister has been able to assure us of when legislation on Nationalist demands like an Irish Language Act will be introduced. There is no such clarity on the Protocol. Westminster must realise that we are serious – it is Stormont or the Protocol, both cannot be had. Now is the time for strength, not weakness.
“Moreover, all should realise that talk of ‘green lanes’ and ‘red lanes’ still signifies a border in the Irish Sea, because they would confirm movement from one sovereign jurisdiction to another, namely from the U.K. to EU territory. Also, they would still leave us in a foreign single market for goods subject to foreign laws we don’t make and can’t change. None of this would be compatible with being an integral part of the U.K., benefitting from the guarantees of Art 6 of the Acts of Union.
“Thus, unionists should be wary of being conned into thinking such resolves the constitutional affront of the Protocol.”