Northern Ireland Protocol: TUV leader Jim Allister says new report confirms threat of a hard border was 'a bogus one designed to punish the UK' for Brexit

The report is being promoted by the Campaign for an Independent Britain (CIB), which bills itself as a non-party political umbrella organisation which has campaigned for Brexit for over 50 years.

As one of CIBUK’s affiliates, Facts4EU has just published a report entitled, 'Damning evidence against the EU and Irish government over the N.I. Protocol'.

The report mainly focuses on formal testimonies from senior customs officials from the UK, Republic of Ireland and EU Parliament, who it quotes as saying there was no need for any infrastructure between Northern Ireland and the Republic in order to facilitate trade and the movement of goods after Brexit. The testimonies are lifted from formal testimony given to Irish and British parliaments.

TUV leader Jim Allister warmly commended the report.

He said: “The infrastructure which was in place on the border for 30 years was not there to stop items which did not conform to trading rules but to stop murderers and gunmen who used the Republic as a base of operations against the United Kingdom and shamefully were protected in doing so by the Irish constitution.

"During the entire debate about Brexit and the Protocol I have repeatedly made the point that no one was suggesting the introduction of a 'hard border' between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

The UK was clear that they would not build it. The Irish Government repeatedly said that they would not. The EU told us that they wouldn’t either. The whole 'threat' was a bogus one designed to punish the U.K. for daring to leave the EU."

“I commend Facts4EU and CIBUK for collecting together information from both HMRC and the Irish Revenue Commissioner which make crystal clear that there was never any prospect of a hard border on the island of Ireland.

“Yet this is the justification cited for the internal UK border which currently splits our country in two and denies Northern Ireland its rightful place of full and equal citizenship within the nation."