Allister: No country 'with an ounce of self-respect' could agree to new EU rules

Since the original Protocol came into effect, Northern Ireland has effectively remained in the EU’s single market for goods, while the rest of the UK has not.

That has resulted in trade friction – and what’s become known as the Irish Sea border.

For that system to operate, Northern Ireland is therefore subject to Brussels legislation which it has no direct say in. Failure to legislate would give the EU the opportunity to take appropriate retaliatory action.

This week, the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee accepted Mr Allister’s view that EU regulations on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland are “politically or legally important and gives rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.”

The North Antrim MP says without this, the legislation would not have been scrutinised and would have become law automatically without any parliamentary comment or debate.

He said the EU law was “curious” for two reasons. “First, it does not apply to an inch of EU territory but to the territory of every inch of the UK (which is supposed to have left the EU) and what is permitted to move from one part of it to another.

“Second, the effect of the regulations is the governance of the division that those 27 countries have imposed on the United Kingdom in the form of an international SPS border between one part of the country and another.

“This disrespects the territorial integrity of the UK and is in breach of the UN Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations which censures: ‘any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States”, he said.

Mr Allister said no country with an ounce of self-respect could agree to the terms.