New PM ‘must make protocol a top priority’

The Ulster Unionist leader also said that dealing with the post-Brexit Northern Ireland Protocol should be among the next prime minister’s top priorities.

The two remaining candidates in the Tory leadership contest are Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

Mr Beattie said: “So far the protocol has formed little part of the policy discussions in the Conservative Party leadership campaign. However, I welcome Brandon Lewis’s comments in the News Letter last week that should Liz Truss become the new prime minister, she can be trusted to ‘resolve the issues with the Northern Ireland Protocol and protect our Union’. We need those words turned into action should Liz Truss succeed Boris Johnson.”

“As soon as the ... leadership campaign is over, we need to see an end to the diplomatic whataboutery over the NI Protocol between the EU and the UK government.

“The EU is as culpable as the UK government and right now we need proper negotiations and Northern Ireland politicians must be in the room.”

Mr Beattie said “alternatives and solutions” put forward by his party “are there for all to see and have been since 2019”.

He added: “Those proposals should at least form the basis for dialogue between the UK government and the EU, and if necessary, local political parties. All of Europe is facing into the combined headwinds of grim economic forecasts and a brutal war in Ukraine which could spread at any time. We need to resolve the issues with the NI Protocol so that political and economic focus can be exclusively directed towards other challenges. Failure to do so could have untold consequences.”