Northern Ireland Protocol frustrations ‘could boil over’ into violence, warns UUP leader Doug Beattie

Mr Beattie told a committee from the House of Lords that “societal division” was getting worse in the Province and that the Government had to act soon to address the unionist community’s concerns about the Protocol.

“It doesn’t take much to go from a brick to a stone, and from a stone to a petrol bomb, and from a petrol bomb to a bullet, and from a bullet to a coffin. It doesn’t take long in Northern Ireland,” he said in his address to the Lords’ sub-committee on the Protocol at Westminster today.

Replying to a question from UUP peer Lord Empey, who is a member of the committee, Mr Beattie said: “I am not trying to scare anybody to say that it is going to happen. All I’m saying is that frustrations could boil over, if we don’t do something in regards to fixing the Protocol.”

On community relations, the UUP leader told peers: “Communities have been coming together but they are slowly being driven apart. There is a small wedge being pushed between them, which is expanding each time because of the Protocol. There is a large swathe of Unionism where the Protocol is deeply damaging for them and they feel their identity is under threat.”

He said he hoped that the expected publication of the Government’s legislation might even drive both the UK and EU back to the negotiating table.

Mr Beattie also suggested that Stormont politicians be given the power to scrutinise EU rules governing Northern Ireland with even a statutory committee at the Assembly.

“They start looking at this and seeing how these EU directives that are to affect Northern Ireland affect us and how we can mitigate that effect if there is a negative effect,” he said.

However, the UUP leader rejected the idea of a direct link between Stormont Ministers and Brussels on how to change these EU rules.

“I think it would be very difficult for Northern Irish Ministers, as part of the United Kingdom, to have a direct link to Brussels,” he said. “I just think that if we do that there is a chance we would have that in all the devolved nations and it could become quite chaotic.”

He accepted that some businesses in the Province are benefitting from the Protocol but added that “we can’t let those who are suffering because of it go to the wall.”

On UK-EU relations, Mr Beattie acknowledged that the expected Protocol legislation would make things worse between London and Brussels.

Mr Beattie called it “agitator legislation”.

He said: “It will really have a detrimental effect on our relationship between Great Britain and the European Union.

“And we will get a response from the EU in regards to our legislation and then they will back off, and they will back off for two or three months, maybe until after the summer and there will be no negotiations.

“But what it will do is it will bring people back to the table after the summer, I would imagine.

“Because of the legislation that is coming forward, things are likely to get worse before they get better, but we believe they will get better if we keep engaging.”