Samuel Morrison: Better things were expected of Steve Baker and Chris Heaton-Harris

They had both been longtime advocates of Brexit. During Theresa May’s time as Prime Minister Mr Heaton-Harris wrote in emphatic terms about what leaving the EU meant:

“The UK either leaves the EU and its institutions or remains a full member. Leaving means leaving the EU, its institutions and the single market.”

He was crystal clear that this was his vision for the whole of the UK, going on to state in the same article:

“Strengthen the Union: we must strengthen the precious Union between the four nations of the United Kingdom. We will work very carefully to ensure that – as powers are repatriated back to Britain – the right powers are returned to Westminster and the right powers are passed to the devolved administrations. We will make sure that no new barriers to living and doing business within our Union are created.”

The words are still on Mr Heaton-Harris‘s website but he now seeks unionists to implement the Protocol which leaves us subject to EU institutions and creates barriers to living and doing business within the Union.

Our Minister of State, Steve Baker, had a similar record.

Speaking to Northern Ireland Conservatives in March, he said:

“We must now save the Belfast Agreement and restore power-sharing by doing what is necessary to bring Northern Ireland back into the UK single market. That means using the Article 16 safeguards immediately, before the Stormont elections.”

Mr Baker appeared to be someone who recognised that the time for words had long passed.

Action should have been taken eight months ago. Yet since coming to Northern Ireland nothing has changed on the Protocol but the demand is that unionists go back into partnership with Sinn Fein regardless.

The situation is worse than that. Mr Baker, who as a backbencher had a reputation as a pro-life MP, has been part of an NIO which has sought to use abortion as a pressure point to get the Executive up and running again.

While many issues have been permitted to drift in the absence of Stormont, the NIO have found it possible to commission abortion services. There were 4,136 abortions carried out between March 2020 and October this year. The man who in 2014 tabled questions in Parliament about the pre-signing of abortion forms in Great Britain finds himself in government imposing the most liberal abortion regime in Europe under which no details of the reasons for terminations are recorded, something which sets Northern Ireland apart from the rest of the UK.

But while there has been a lack of delivery for unionists it has been full steam ahead when it comes to nationalist demands.

A few weeks ago Minister Baker expressed disappointment that the DUP did not support the passage of Irish language legislation at Westminster. At one level the disappointment was understandable. The NIO can claim with justification that they are only acting to progress legalisation agreed between the DUP and Sinn Fein as part of the New Decade New Approach Agreement.

However, only the most ill-informed would actually believe Minister Baker’s claim that the Bill will as he claimed foster “reconciliation in this area of identity and culture”.

Minister Baker cited unionism’s historic approach to Irish as justification for his actions. Perhaps he could expand his reading on the subject to include Pat Walsh’s 2005 book ‘The Curious Case of the Mayo Librarian’.

In it, the story of Letitia Dunbar-Harrison is recounted, a woman who lost her job as county librarian in Mayo in 1930 because allegedly she lacked proficiency in Irish. In a debate in the county council on the issue another possible reason was cited with one member asking pointedly, “Could a Protestant be trusted to hand out books to Catholics?”

With Irish remaining a subject studied exclusively in schools associated with one community 100 years later, the discriminatory impact of giving those proficient in Irish an advantage in applying for public sector jobs is obvious.

l Samuel Morrison is the TUV press officer