Jim Allister: Some may have abandoned their opposition to the protocol, but unionists must not

"This is an incredible state of affairs and one that Theresa May herself, as I think you quoted earlier, said that no British prime minister would ever agree to, but we now have agreed."

Now, he is writing in the News Letter urging the DUP to become protocol implementers.

His pretence that the Windsor Framework “substantially altered” the protocol is just untrue.

Nothing of substance was changed, nor could it be because the Windsor Framework was contrived within the confines of Article 164 of the Withdrawal Agreement which expressly dictated that none of the “essential elements” of the protocol would be changed.

Nor were they. So, under the Windsor Framework:

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• Northern Ireland’s trade continues to be controlled by the EU Customs Code, which decrees Great Britain a third/foreign country;

• In consequence an EU trade border operates in the Irish Sea to partition the United Kingdom, with customs declarations and checks imposed on goods coming from Great Britain as they enter what is deemed to be EU territory;

• Northern Ireland continues under the heel of EU single market rules, with hundreds of such laws specified in Annex 2 of the protocol as directly applicable to Northern Ireland - precisely the same laws as govern the manufacture of goods and control trade in the Republic of Ireland - laws, of course, we don’t make and can’t change but which are imposed by the colonial rule of the EU;

• Because of the supremacy accorded in law to the protocol, the Supreme Court has held Art 6 of the Acts of Union, which guaranteed the economic union of the United Kingdom, to be in suspension.

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The constitutional consequences of the above are as obvious as they are insidious.

These are issues Graham Gudgin used to rail against, but now he insists unionists roll over and implement this Union-dismantling protocol.

His false assurance that the protocol is not a slippery slope to an economic all-Ireland, is just that, false!

Consider the realities:

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• Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland now manufacture and sell their goods under precisely the same (EU) laws, with no route for this critical part of the Northern Ireland economy to return to laws made in either London or Belfast. Divergence from Great Britain and alignment with the Republic is intended and inevitable.

• Great Britain suppliers are fast being driven out of our market by the customs border and its bureaucracy, with resulting reorientation of our economy away from Great Britain.

• The suspension of Art 6 of the Acts of Union breaks the constitutional and economic link.

• Economic fusion on the island of Ireland is a stepping stone to political union.

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Dr Gudgin used to recognise as much.

In May 2022, he wrote: "As it stands, the current customs border in the Irish Sea splits Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom, while creating a seamless land border that could provide a basis for future Irish unity.”It is for this reason that all of Northern Ireland’s disparate unionist parties oppose the protocol."

The customs border in the Irish Sea remains as does the seamless land border which could result, according to Dr Gudgin, in a future all-Ireland, but now he says accept it!

The essence of our membership of the United Kingdom has always been built on the equal citizenship that such a union guarantees.

Now, courtesy of the protocol, that equal citizenship is being shredded before our eyes.

But, Mr Gudgin’s answer is to aid the process by implementing through Stormont the very thing that is carrying us out of the Union.

No thanks.

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Jim Allister KC MLA is the leader of Traditional Unionist Voice