The Northern Ireland Protocol may fit with the Alliance Party’s aim to rejoin the EU

According to recent reports the Alliance Party now wants to fix the problems caused by the Irish Sea border and bring Northern Ireland back into the European Union.

These aims may be contradictory but at least they might explain Alliance’s approach to the Protocol.

In my view the Alliance position on the Northern Ireland Protocol was a significant factor in encouraging it to be imposed against the wishes of the unionist parties.

Alliance continued to provide support even when it started to become clear that the protocol would have significant consequences for everyone in Northern Ireland, they explained the problems as teething issues.

As Alliance now want to fix the problems they seem to have finally accepted that problems exist.

A Great Britain based supplier, whom I have done business with for years has discontinued direct supplies to NI due to the custom clearance requirements, he finds it more straightforward to send packages costing around £100 to France.

This is a truly shocking situation between two United Kingdom based businesses, which of course has real cost implications for NI consumers.

As supporters of the protocol the Alliance Party should have been fully aware of its consequences, however the consequences may well fit with what now appears to be Alliance’s longer term aim of taking NI back into the EU and out of the UK.

It is therefore possible that Alliance will propose a ‘sticking plaster’ type fix to the sea border problems, to make it appear they are in the business of providing solutions to a problem they helped create, while keeping their longer term aim of re-joining the EU alive.

James Martin, Dromore, Co Down

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