Twelfth 2023: Northern Ireland Protocol has succeeded where IRA failed
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In a fiery message to those gathered at the Twelfth demonstration field in Broughshane, TUV leader Jim Allister said a “Stormont sticking plaster” will not repair the damage caused to the Union by the post-Brexit trading arrangements, including the Windsor Framework.
Both the NI Protocol and subsequent Windsor Framework agreement involve checks, at the behest of the European Union, on goods moving between NI and GB.
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Hide AdMr Allister said those arrangements seriously damage the integrity of the United Kingdom.“Our Union is fractured. Fractured by the pernicious Protocol and its confirming Windsor Whitewash, as delivered by those who in their perfidy called the Union ‘precious’.“For over three decades and knee deep in innocent blood the IRA tried everything to break our Union. But where the IRA failed, the tragic truth is the Protocol succeeded,” he said.
"Succeeded in pushing the border to the Irish Sea, succeeded, by putting us in the same legal and economic footing as the Republic, in starting transition into an all-Ireland economically – itself a stepping stone.”Mr Allister said: “Forcing business to reorientate its supply chains on a north-south basis and subjecting us to the same economic footing and trading laws as the Republic is key to building Irish unity.
"Governing us as a condominium, subject to foreign laws and jurisdiction, with even control of movements of goods from GB under EU, not UK, law, is to ensure our transition out of the UK.“Faced with such betrayal, what should Unionism do? Some advocate Stormont sticking plaster. That is not the answer. It will not mend our fractured Union.”
The TUV went on to say: “One thing is abundantly clear – we should not facilitate our own destruction. To operate Stormont in these circumstances... is the surest route to facilitating the journey out of the UK.
"The virulence of the demand for a return to Stormont from Sinn Fein and their little helpers is evidence in itself of whose cause that would assist”.