Jim Allister: Brexit backstop is so damaging to Union with Great Britain it cannot be tolerated for a day, let alone five years

There is only a draft which has no legal force until ratified.

Thus, there is no persuasive reason why, if genuine change is intended, that the text of the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be amended.

Adamant refusal to change its text should make us all suspicious of the veracity of any suggested mode of alteration, such as intergovernmental agreements on interpretation.

Since EU law trumps such side-deals, it also means the interpretations can never contradict the substance of the original treaty.

And in its substance the Withdrawal Agreement is very emphatic: Article 4 could not be clearer — the text of the agreement will have the same supremacy in the UK as EU law presently enjoys, with an enforceable obligation on the UK to disapply through primary legislation any inconsistent UK domestic provisions.

Think what that could mean under the backstop as the Irish Sea border takes shape and especially if, as it allows, Great Britain escapes the backstop but Northern Ireland does not.

It would be equal folly to settle for a sunset clause for the backstop for three reasons.

1. The backstop is so antithetical to the Union with Great Britain that it cannot be tolerated for one day, never mind five years.

2. Once you accept the principle of treating Northern Ireland differently, you have accepted the template that will shape any ultimate arrangements with the UK.

3. By, for example, accepting a five year expiry you immediately set the target date for Sinn Fein for the Irish unification referendum it is demanding, with the end of backstop becoming the catalyst. Being itself a building block towards Irish unity why also make it a staging post?

If, therefore, all the government is seeking is fresh packaging but no meaningful textual changes, despite the instruction of Parliament to obtain alternatives to the backstop, then it deserves the same emphatic rejection as before when it returns to the Commons next week.

Without removal of the backstop there is no justification for any MP changing to vote for that which they have already rejected.

The draft Withdrawal Agreement is the ultimate ‘bad deal’, making no deal far preferable — in the certain knowledge that nothing will bring Brussels and Dublin quicker to the table.

• Jim Allister is TUV leader and MLA for North Antrim