TUV leader Jim Allister accuses Northern Ireland Office of double standards and deception

Mr Allister said: “Not for the first time the NIO is callously playing politics to try and coerce unionists – something they never dared try with republicans during the three years of the Sinn Fein boycott of Stormont. This time it is over the long promised £600 energy payment.

“When the Secretary of State says the lack of an Assembly and Executive is holding up the distribution of this Westminster package he is peddling fatuous nonsense. We still have precisely the same departments, fully manned by civil servants, as delivered the Covid payments.

“Sadly, the NIO is shamelessly politicking and trying to force Unionist politicians into submission on the Union-dismantling Protocol. It must not happen.

“Meanwhile, the same Secretary of State on whose instructions last week in the Supreme Court it was accepted the Protocol has ‘disapplied’ Art 6 of the Acts of Union – a key cornerstone of the Union – seems to have come to the EU view that it is the mere ‘functioning’ of the Protocol that is at issue. It is not.

“It is the very existence of a Protocol which is premised on GB being a foreign country whose goods must be checked and subjected to EU tariffs at an Irish Sea border before being admitted to Northern Ireland. This and our subjection to the laws of a foreign legislature are the sovereignty issues which must be addressed if our integral place in the UK is to be restored and if Stormont is ever to return.”