As a Remainer I blame the Northern Ireland protocol on those who pushed for it, not on Brexit

Nevertheless even as someone who voted to Remain I do not agree with pinning the blame for this protocol on anyone except the people who lobbied for it and those who implemented it.

Do I hold the DUP accountable for missing opportunities that might have avoided this? Absolutely, but they certainly didn’t choose this outcome.

In fact nobody in NI chose this outcome. We weren’t even given the opportunity, denied the right to a democratic say on an issue of huge magnitude with significant repercussions.

The argument has repeatedly been made by nationalists and others that there was no democratic consent for Brexit in Northern Ireland therefore there should be no democratic consent required for the protocol.

But the protocol determines our future trading relationship with the UK and EU; for all intents and purposes in Northern Ireland, the NI Protocol is Brexit.

The argument that democratic consent is not necessary for an arrangement addressing issues as significant as the border and our future trading arrangements is not only misplaced, it is also inherently anti-democratic and regressively sectarian.

In 1998 we agreed to settle such contentious issues through the principle of consent and parity of esteem.

Consent mandated that the constitutional position of NI could not change without the democratic consent of the people who live here, while parity of esteem requires cross-community support for “key decisions”.

That was how our society committed to moving forward, and it was endorsed by a huge majority in referendums in NI and the Republic of Ireland. Fast forward 23 years and the protocol has been implemented without any consent, and while the assembly will get a say on this in four years time, the Northern Ireland Act has now been amended to take parity of esteem out of the equation.

A lot of people are questioning unionist anger towards the EU, after all it was Boris Johnson who sold us out, but the EU have shown disdain for unionist concerns from the start of negotiations.

When Theresa May went back to the EU facing difficulties getting the backstop through Parliament she came back empty handed to the extent that she was eventually forced out of her job.

If the EU had displayed the slightest sympathy for unionist concerns, not only could we have ended up with the less-flawed backstop, we could have avoided Boris Johnson and the ERG marching the UK towards a hard Brexit.

Since Brexit was first mooted I made clear that a hard border on the island of Ireland was not an option, not because of the purported “threat to peace”, but because I recognised how important this was to nationalists, republicans and others. It is disappointing that this sentiment has not been returned.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that we need an arrangement to address issues around the border, but if we had been left with a hard border on this island you can bet your life that the EU and RoI would have done everything in their power to minimise friction.

Instead we are left with a border down the Irish Sea, there have been no such efforts and NI has been infected with a tapeworm of friction and bureaucracy, a far cry from the ‘best of both worlds’ we were promised.

Not only are we now second class citizens in the UK where we have been excluded from our own economic Union, we are also third class citizens of the EU where we do not even have the right to democratic representation in the rules and regulations forced on us.

If NI politicians had stood together and demanded a better deal perhaps they could have achieved something more balanced that could have been sold to the people of Northern Ireland, but they didn’t even try.

Perhaps politicians will reflect on this in coming years, that when Northern Ireland and the peace process needed them most, they were found lacking.

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