Don’t be foolish by rushing back to Stormont, Allister warns DUP

The TUV leader said it would be “foolish in the extreme” to accept the bill at face value without being certain the Irish Sea border can be removed.

Mr Allister also cautioned other unionist MLAs against rushing back into a fresh Stormont Executive headed by Michelle O’Neill as first minister of Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill was drawn up to empower the UK government to override those elements of the protocol that handed powers to the EU over NI.

It is currently into its third stage in the House of Commons where on Wednesday Conservative MPs voted down attempts by the SDLP, Labour and the Liberal Democrats to dilute the bill and neutralise the legislation, which nationalists in NI and the Irish government claim will break international law.

Tory MPs’ defiance in the face of warnings about the bill triggering a trade war with the EU or risking a possible UK-US trans-Atlantic trade deal was praised by the DUP leadership.

While welcoming the defeat of the amendments in the Commons, the TUV leader said: “It is important that unionism holds its nerve. The reality that the bill does not remove the Irish Sea border – but both confirms and ameliorates it by the introduction of red and green lines – should cause unionists to be wary of being double-crossed again by the government that brought us the Union-dismantling protocol in the first place.”

Mr Allister also pointed to the danger of a get-out-clause contained within the legislation that could bring the protocol/post-Brexit agreement with the EU back.

“Nor should the power in clause 15(2) for a subsequent government to reinstate the full protocol be forgotten,” he said.

The bill does contain core changes that unionists have called for to the post-Brexit agreement that they believe has detached Northern Ireland from the UK’s internal market and threatens the Province’s constitutional link to Great Britain.

The four key changes the legislation make possible are:

l A green lane for GB goods coming into NI where there will no longer be any customs checks, and a red lane for those that are going into the Irish Republic and must be subject to EU inspections;

l Businesses in GB having the choice to have their goods marked as for the NI market only, or those marked indicating they will need to be inspected under EU rules;

l Tax breaks such as VAT cuts on energy-saving materials and other state aid being made available to the entire UK, including Northern Ireland;

l A new court of arbitration on disputes, which would replace the current protocol-based system where the European Court of Justice rather than any British court has the final in the Province.

Turning to what may happen if and when the bill is enacted, the TUV leader warned about the DUP entering a new power-sharing coalition headed by a Sinn Fein first minister.

“Ms O’Neill can only come to the office if she finds a stooge deputy within the unionist parties. TUV was clear that we would not facilitate a republican first minister being foisted on the Assembly in which unionism remains the largest designation.

“Unionists elected off the back of TUV transfer – of which there are 10 in the Assembly – would do well to reflect on this fact before rushing to endorse the leader of a party which continues to hold that Northern Ireland should not exist as the key reason for its existence.”

The DUP faces competing pressures over the Protocol Bill and the possibility of joining a new Executive with Ms O’Neill as first minister and its leader Jeffrey Donaldson as deputy first minister.

If the DUP gets what it wants over the bill, and the UK government acts unilaterally to change “Union-threatening” aspects of the protocol, the party will then be under huge pressure to form a devolved government.

Many of its grassroots members and the unionist electorate are opposed to the prospect of a Sinn Fein first minister, even though both posts are technically equal under the Belfast Agreement.

A widely read letter from a News Letter reader this week challenged Sir Jeffrey Donaldson to make clear the DUP will never facilitate a SF first minister.