I think MLA voted to ban soil imports from Britain or am I barking up the wrong tree?

William Irwin, the DUP MLA for Newry and Armagh, in Saturday’s Farming Life said that it’s a travesty and a scandal that the Woodland Trust has had to cancel an order for 22,000 trees due to the NI Protocol (‘Irwin slams the protocol on tree movements,’ February 23).

He goes on to say that it is an unfathomable and unacceptable situation that British trees can’t be planted on British soil — absolutely correct.

But here’s the rub or am I totally wrong — all of the unionists in Stormont (with the exception of Jim Wells and Jim Allister) voted on December 8 to implement the protocol and all its outworkings, including Mr Irwin.

That leads me to conclude:

1) Mr Irwin didn’t read the protocol legislation before he agreed to it;

2) Mr Irwin didn’t understand it,

3) Mr Irwin didn’t really care what was in it,

4) Mr Irwin thought he could bluff and bluster his way through the consequences like British trees on British soil that has him all of a fluster.

5) Mr Irwin did as he was told along with his colleagues.

Or am I barking up the wrong tree(s), 22,000 of them actually?

Harry Patterson, Castlecaulfield

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