Protocol 'means to end' for Sinn Fein Irish Unity plans, says Allister

Speaking in response to comments at the party’s annual meeting in Athlone at the weekend, Jim Allister said: “Even discounting all the self-promotional hyperbole and hype of Sinn Fein over Irish unity, unionists who understand the constitutional implications of the Protocol, know that it has greatly aided the cause of dismantling the Union and, as Varadkar has identified, created the pathway to Irish unity through the economic unification of Ireland.

Michelle O’Neill told her party’s conference at the weekend that the UK government needs to “call time” on negotiations with the DUP over the Windsor Framework. She party’s vice-president said that “The British government need to call time on their endless two-way negotiation with the DUP. Public patience has run out. We must move forward. It is now decision time”.

Mr Allister called again on unionists not to return to government at Stormont – not only because of the protocol – but because it would further Sinn Fein’s unification plans.

“The Protocol’s Irish unity trajectory is the compelling reason why thinking unionists cannot operate a Protocol subservient Stormont, which inevitably would expedite the unification process, not least under a Sinn Fein Economy Minister”, he said.

Allister said that “Sinn Féin’s single-minded pursuit of Irish unity is itself a convincing reason why it would be unionist folly to enthrone a Sinn Fein First Minister to use that very position and government to advance the destruction of the Union. Sinn Fein has never been in government to make Northern Ireland work, far less so now with the prestige of office hijacked to advance the absorption of NI into the Republic.”

He also reiterated his view that the Windsor Framework is pulling Northern Ireland away from the UK and closer to Dublin and Brussels, saying that: “Under the Protocol Northern Ireland is now more in the EU/ROI’s economic orbit, operating under the same single market rules as Dublin and under the same EU Customs Code which treats GB as a foreign country, with checks and tariffs on its goods and resulting diversion of trade with the border pushed to the Irish Sea. Little wonder Sinn Fein are the Protocol’s greatest cheerleaders and those most frustrated by unionists refusing to aid their self-destruction through themselves implementing the Protocol”.