Northern Ireland Protocol: Baroness Kate Hoey tells rally she hopes for new series of ‘organised, angry and peaceful’ demonstrations

It was standing room only at the as a panel of political heavyweights rallied animated crowd to fight for what they argued is the preservation of the union.

The town’s generous Orange Hall was packed beyond capacity by a passionate crowd who persistently expressed their anger and frustration with the Protocol, applauding, engaging and even heckling with panelists.

At the top table sat former Tory MEP Ben Habib, Baroness Kate Hoey, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, TUV leader Jim Allister and local UUP MLA Robbie Butler.

A common theme, passionately received by the audience, was that the Protocol is an existential threat to the union - with repeated calls for unionist unity in how to fight it, especially in the forthcoming assembly election.

The loudest and most raucous welcome of the evening was reserved for the first speaker, Baroness Hoey, who called on the audience to fight against the Protocol, and called for a new series of street demonstrations.

Concluding her speech to loud applause, she told the hall: “Ultimately we will only do it if we show the government that we are not going to accept this. I hope that this tonight is the beginning of a whole number of demonstrations, campaign meetings inside and outside, organised, angry and peaceful.”

Mr Habib was up next, lambasting the lack of concern on the issue at Westminster, and calling for a “grand alliance” among unionist parties in the election, with the aim of sending a clear message to Westminster and Brussels.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said The Irish Sea border represents “the single greatest threat to Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom in a generation”.

He added: “The Irish Sea border represents the single greatest threat to Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom in a generation.

“The presence of trade barriers within our own country has the grave potential to succeed where decades of terrorism failed, by driving an irrevocable wedge between Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK.

He added: “If the EU really care about political stability in Northern Ireland, then they should act immediately to resolve the problems created by the protocol.”

TUV leader Jim Allister, who was given a floor-stomping welcome, gave a fiery speech, explaining in some detail how the European Union began as an economic project, breaking down customs barriers between nation states, but later became centrally and politically controlled. And this, he said, was how growing customs union between Belfast and Dublin at the cost of links with GB, will also lead to Irish unification - “the very thing the IRA were fighting for”.

Mr Allister told the rally the protocol is “incompatible” with Northern Ireland’s position within the UK. He did not wish to be in the generation that saw the union destroyed, he added.

UUP MLA Robbie Butler highlighted the deep concerns his party colleague, Health Minister Robin Swann, has repeatedly expressed about the difficulty the Protocol is causing with regards to bringing medicines into NI. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the period of grace periods and derogations - we have not even seen the full impact of what the protocol will bring,” he added.

After the speeches an exasperated florist from took the floor to explain how the Protocol is strangling her business, forcing her to bulk buy huge loads with other florists and imposing incomprehensible red tape and forms to complete.

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