Protocol issues more important than whether Boris Johnson stays or goes, says TUV leader Jim Allister

Despite the uncertainty over Mr Johnson’s premiership Mr Allister said the “priority for unionists remains the removal of in the iniquitous Protocol.”

He said: “It is the Protocol which is dismantling the Union of which he is Prime Minister. Any government must lay the axe to the root of the problem, which in legislative terms is found in section 7A of the EU

Withdrawal Act 2018 (as amended by EUWAA 2020) and in section 8C. The supremacy of the Protocol over, for example, Art 6 of the Acts of Union must be reversed by the repeal of section 7A EUWA 2018.

“This is nhw I will judge any Bill and whether it still leaves us subject to foreign jurisdiction and whether it fully restores us into the UK single market and customs union of which we must be an indisputable and intergral part.”

Meanwhile DUP MLA Diane Dodds has called on other parties to follow the “positive example” of her party colleague and Education Minister Michelle McIlveen in ensuring families of children entitled to free school meals will receive a holiday food grant this summer.

Mrs Dodds said that instead of “wringing their hands and blaming others” the parties should allow ministers to continue to deliver for the community despite the absence of an Executive.

She said: “Family budgets are under huge pressure currently with rising bills, including the price of food. The announcement by the Education Minister will be a welcome relief for the 100,000 children who are entitled to free school meals and their families.

“The £12.6million allocated to this programme is a significant investment by the Education Minister. In this instance we have a Minister not just talking about the problems but taking positive action to help. Ministers remain in posts and they have the ability to take decisions. Other parties and other Ministers should follow that example instead of wringing their hands and blaming others.”

The Upper Bann MLA and former Minister added: “There are the same parties who complain but did not even respond to a positive proposal put forward by Sir Jeffrey Donaldson in March of a rates cut for every household with an expansion of the Energy Payments Scheme.”