Letter: Unionists in Stormont will have to implement protocol and help break up of Union and so cease to be unionists

The thrust of Dr Graham Gudgin’s letter last Saturday (‘I made clear my opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol, but Jim Allister objects to my suggestion that the DUP return to Stormont,’ January 13) appears to be that the DUP should return to Stormont and implement the NI Protocol/Windsor Framework because their continuing refusal to do so risks the government removing “the DUP’s veto”.

The inconvenient fact overlooked by Dr Gudgin is that the Belfast Agreement’s much vaunted cross community consensus, once touted as being sacrosanct by advocates of the agreement, has already been dispensed with in order to circumvent unionist opposition to the NI Protocol/Windsor Framework.

Therefore, unionists returning to a Stormont executive will be obliged to implement the Protocol/Framework and undertake an active role in the breaking up of the Union. In doing so, they would cease to be unionists.

Unionist leaders, in their Ulster Day 2021 pledge, committed to rejecting the protocol and to restoring NI’s sovereignty within the UK. In advocating for the DUP to return to Stormont, Dr Gudgin is asking elected unionist MLAs to engage in an act of constitutional self-harm for which they have no mandate.

Thomas Smyth, Belfast BT4