TUV Jim Allister's New Year message: Disastrous DUP deal on Northern Ireland Protocol left Union weaker

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For TUV leader Jim Allister, 2025 will see him continue his battle against the Northern Ireland Protocol - which he says continues to undermine Northern Ireland's place in the UK and bring it closer to Dublin rule.

Unionism embarks on 2025 weaker than this time last year, because of the folly of the disastrous Donaldson/DUP deal which saw unionists give up their prime leverage against the Union-dismantling protocol by returning to Stormont,” he said in his New Year message.

Unionists who returned to Stormont, he said, are implementing “the very foreign EU laws that are prising us out of the United Kingdom and building the stepping stone of the all-Ireland economy”.

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He claimed that the DUP “enthroning” Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill as first minister – so that they could reclaim the deputy and other ministerial positions – was more important than refusing to operate Stormont as “a colonial Vichy regime in 300 areas of law”.

​TUV leader Jim Allister and party MLA Timothy Gaston​TUV leader Jim Allister and party MLA Timothy Gaston
​TUV leader Jim Allister and party MLA Timothy Gaston

When the DUP did this, he claimed, “our enemies rejoiced and the fight went out of many MLAs against the iniquitous protocol”.

But the MP insisted that the protocol/Windsor Framework is “as pernicious and threatening” as ever.

GB firms are “increasingly stopping supplies” to Northern Ireland “and soon all parcels will be subject to the full red lane rigour” of the Irish Sea border, he said.

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“Far from our place having been restored within the UK, as falsely claimed by the Donaldson acolytes, Article 6 of the Acts of Union remains in suspension and the Union is being weakened day by day as the all-Ireland dynamic strengthens. Enforced damage is bad enough, but when it is aided by self-inflicted folly, then, it is even worse.”

He described the Stormont vote in support of the protocol on December 10 – in which the Good Friday Agreement requirement for unionist consent was suspended – as “a gerrymandered vote”.

As a result, he said, supporters of the protocol will claim it has “democratic endorsement”, a claim he says is given credence so long as unionists operate the executive.

He added: “My hope is that in 2025 we will see a return of strength in opposing the protocol and, if it takes it, a realignment so that all who truly see the dangers can work assiduously together to undo the damage.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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