Ex Tory leader: The place of Northern Ireland within the UK is looking more and more precarious due to the NI Protocol

Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith has said that the Union is now in greater peril than ever before.
By The Newsroom
Published 2nd Oct 2021, 10:30 BST
Updated 2nd Oct 2021, 13:49 BST
“I was always led to believe that the survival of the Union must ultimately come above all else for a Conservative government.“I was always led to believe that the survival of the Union must ultimately come above all else for a Conservative government.
“I was always led to believe that the survival of the Union must ultimately come above all else for a Conservative government.

He made the statement ahead of the Tory conference, set to run for three days from tomorrow.

He blasted the rules which the protocol has imposed on Northern Ireland as “incomprehensible” and stressed the time has come for Boris Johnson to activate Article 16.

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Writing in The Telegraph, he said: “I was always led to believe that the survival of the Union must ultimately come above all else for a Conservative government.

“Yet as a result of the dangerous and deeply divisive Northern Ireland protocol — which this government made the mistake of signing up to — the place of Northern Ireland within the UK is looking more and more precarious.

“In short, as we all travel to Manchester for the first face-to-face party conference since the landslide victory in 2019, the Union has never been in greater jeopardy.

“At the heart of the problem with the protocol is the EU’s insistence that its law must govern goods coming in from the UK to Northern Ireland.

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“Instead of imposing checks only on those goods that are at risk of being transported to the Irish Republic, EU negotiators have taken the unreasonable view that all goods coming into Northern Ireland are in danger of entering the EU.”

He said the result of such a “ridiculous claim” is that there are now more checks on goods entering NI than are carried out in Rotterdam – one of the world’s busiest ports.

Meanwhile yesterday, Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney vowed to find a way of “fixing” the conversation with Britain.

Speaking at a reception at Manchester Art Gallery, the minister said the countries had entered a “new phase” of their relationship after Britain’s departure from the EU.

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He said: “For me, the challenges we have faced in recent years have resulted in a new conversation, not always positive, in the context of the British-Irish relationship.

“We need to find a way of fixing that and we will. But, more importantly, we need to understand the breadth and the scale of the connections and the closeness of those relationships between Britain and Ireland.”

• Morning View: A helpful intervention from Iain Duncan Smith against Northern Ireland Protocol

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Related topics:Northern IrelandIain Duncan SmithNI ProtocolSimon CoveneyBen Lowry