The Anglo Irish Agreement led gave the Republic a foot in the door in Northern Ireland and ultimately led to the Irish Sea border, says Jim Allister
The Anglo Irish Agreement gave Dublin a foot in the door that has led on to the Irish Sea border, Jim Allister MP has said.
The TUV leader spoke to a fundraising event for his party on Saturday night in Ballymoney, about the state of unionism 40 years after the deal between the UK and Republic of Ireland was signed.
Mr Allister KC said: “The Anglo-Irish Agreement of 15 November 1985 remains an indelible stain on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. On that treacherous day she signed up to diminishing UK sovereignty over Northern Ireland by letting the Republic put its foot in the door.
“That trajectory has continued to the point that today, courtesy of the Dublin-driven protocol, we are governed in over 300 areas of law by the same laws as the Republic, while in those 300 areas UK laws apply only to Great Britain. The constitutional damage – confirmed by the Supreme Court holding Article 6 of the Acts of Union in suspension – is compounded by the anti-democratic fact that these are all laws we didn’t make and can’t change, yet they are laws that are shaping our economy and day by day building the insidious stepping stone of the all-Island economy.”
Mr Allister: “For this, the current lead party of unionism, the DUP, must carry the greatest share of responsibility. Because this is the very arrangement that they now voluntarily implement through Stormont, having lied shamelessly that the Irish Sea border was gone in order to justify their somersault back into power with their Sinn Fein partners.
“By such climbdown actions, recently over the protocol, in the 1980s after the Anglo Irish Agreement, and spectacularly in 2007 when they first enthroned IRA/Sinn Fein in power, they have signalled their weakness to the British government. Little wonder London feels emboldened in its triangle of co-operation with Dublin and Brussels to tighten the noose of that Union-dismantling border.
"Such inevitability makes it more difficult for those of us who have stayed the course to deliver the restorative outcome we need, but undaunted, that is the cause and course on which I am set as your voice in parliament. That is the cause in whose pursuit we will invite the voters, not just in North Antrim, but across the province, to strengthen our hand in the 2027 elections.”