Under the Northern Ireland Protocol we will never be a full part of the UK: Jim Allister

According to the TUV leader, as a majority of MLAs are now supportive of the current post-Brexit trading arrangements, no meaningful changes would be made even if the power to do so was in the hands of local politicians.

“Two compelling realities will quash such misplaced optimism,” he said.

“First, for Stormont to take a policy position on anything, particularly of this magnitude, it requires mutual agreement. With most MLAs being committed ‘rigorous implementers’, there is no chance of anything diminishing the European Union stranglehold of the Protocol being agreed, even if it could be implemented.

"Second, every key facet of the Protocol is governed by EU law – even the much vaunted, but largely meaningless, ‘green lane’ is controlled by EU, not British law.

"So, the prospect of Stormont influencing, never mind changing, anything of substance is nil. Thus, those advocating a return to Stormont are in fact signalling a willingness to accept colonial rule from Brussels and the pitiful serfdom that comes with it.”

Mr Allister said an end to the DUP’s boycott of the powersharing administration will copperfasten the status of Great Britain as being “foreign” to Northern Ireland.

"Dressing it up in the pretence that from within Stormont they will change anything only adds a layer of deception,” he said.

“To return to Stormont under the Protocol is to accept that never again will we be a full part of the United Kingdom, that the all important Art 6 of the Acts of Union will remain in permanent suspension, that we will operate the Irish Sea border treating GB as a foreign country and meekly accept the writ of foreign law.”

Mr Allister also said the trade barriers will become even more obvious as the new rules become fully effective in the coming months.

“What a travesty and disaster for unionism if in the very month, October, that the ‘grace periods’ end and we begin to feel the full weight of the iniquitous Protocol, it gave up the only leverage it has and became Protocol implementers,” he said.

"That is not an option for anyone who values and refuses to give up on the Union.”​