The Northern Ireland Protocol damages the Belfast Agreement and sows division, Doug Beattie tells Ulster Unionist Party conference

The protocol is damaging the Belfast Agreement and sowing divisions in the province, Mr Beattie said.

Addressing the UUP’s party conference in south Belfast at the weekend, he accused the Democratic Unionist Party of being “naïve and short sighted” in trusting Boris Johnson’s handling of post Brexit negotiations with the EU that led to the Protocol.

Mr Beattie said: “I make no apologies for not supporting a protocol that damages the Belfast Agreement. As a senior EU official said to me recently the protocol doesn’t damage the Belfast Agreement as much as BREXIT, but they accepted it does damage it.

“Amongst many issues the protocol has a built-in instability that will raise tensions every time we have an election as articles 5-10 are voted on every 4 years.”

The UUP leader continued: “From a sectarian headcount we are about to begin a protocol headcount which will take precedence over all other issues.

“The protocol must be replaced with a treaty that works for all the people of this island. This means no trading borders North South or East West. There cannot be a border in the Irish Sea.”

At the conference Mr Beattie outlined what he called his “inclusive” vision of unionism encapsulated in the phrase “Union of People.”

He said: “The hashtag Union of People is not just a strap line, it is a vision. It is a vison of people working together regardless of their religion, gender, colour, sexual orientation, background, or culture. It is a vision to make Northern Ireland work for those who live here, work here, or visit here.

“My aspiration is for Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom through the good times and the hard times. I shall make this case with confidence wherever I go and whoever I engage with.

“My unionism is confident, positive, progressive, and inclusive.”

As part of his mission to make the UUP more “inclusive” Beattie invited the first ever representatives from Northern Ireland’s gay community to have a stall on the fringe of the conference at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Shawsbridge on Saturday.

After twenty-three years Beattie said the Belfast Agreement is “long overdue an MOT.”

He singled out the five party-mandatory coalition modelled built into the post-Agreement political system as needing review.

“Mandatory coalition and other measures that were supposed to be about minority protection have been used and abused for the purpose of frustrating the Executive and the Assembly.

“There have been some pitiful outcomes and mutual veto rather than delivery and power sharing. A mandatory five party coalition no longer delivers good government,” Mr Beattie said.

The UUP leader said it was a fallacy to portray him and the party as “big house unionism.” He said: “The son of a soldier, I travelled the world changing schools every two years until I returned to a terrace house in a loyalist estate in Portadown. Three bedrooms shared between six children, three boys and three girls, my mother and father and a beagle dog called Jonny.

“My uncle Samuel was murdered by terrorists the year I returned home to Northern Ireland. I was 10, it was the first funeral I ever attended. My mother died from cancer having suffered for two years when I was 15 and at the age of 16 I left school with no educational qualifications and joined the military.

“Any notion that I come from “Big House Unionism” is a fallacy, indeed the Ulster Unionists of 2021 are far removed from that old stereotype. We come from all corners of our society from working-class loyalist estates, to small and medium sized farms, to educational and health professionals and all that falls in-between.”

Beattie also revealed that he will send two of the party’s leading figures to Europe and the United States on “missions” to sell the unionist message.

He said former leaders Mike Nesbitt will be sent to Washington DC while Sir Reg Empey will travel to the EU. “We may have left the EU but we are still Europeans and we need friends in Europe as never before,” Beattie said.

On Nesbitt’s visit to the US, the UUP leader said “Mike will engage key influencers”,

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