Unionist leaders welcome Supreme Court ruling - but say EU law must go from Northern Ireland
Unionist leaders have welcomed the Supreme Court legacy ruling and its implications for the Windsor Framework – but say only the full removal of the deal can restore UK full sovereignty in Northern Ireland.
The government had appealed rulings in the Belfast courts about the legality of legacy legislation – in part due to the wider constitutional implications.
Under the post-Brexit trade deal, a limited number of EU rights directives continue to apply in the province and not the rest of the UK.
Campaigners and Northern Ireland’s statutory agencies have sought to widen the scope of the legislation, but judges in the UK’s top court have clarified the more limited scope of EU law.
Commenting on the judgement, DUP Leader Gavin Robinson said, “This is both a significant and welcome ruling which has implications not just in terms of legacy, but for those who had set out to undermine the previous Supreme Court ruling in relation to gender and its application in Northern Ireland.
“In relation to the Windsor Framework, any positive step is welcome but ultimately it is necessary to deal with the root cause of the problem in Northern Ireland, namely the full restoration of Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom, including removing the application of EU law here.
“For those who believed that bodies such as the Equality Commission or Human Rights Commission set the law in Northern Ireland this should be a wake-up call. Their activism has been exposed and they should now make clear that their attempts to undermine the previous Supreme Court ruling will be withdrawn. As a result of their own actions, any credibility they had or confidence which remained in them has now been lost.”
TUV leader Jim Allister KC MP welcomed the ruling “insofar as it restrains the effect of Article 2 of the Protocol/Windsor Framework - though, of course, the Protocol in all its parts must go.
“It is a timely rebuff to Europhile activists, such as the NIHRC. “While it checks the absurd contention that rights in NI should be those evolving in the EU, not of the UK, it does not curb the continuing and pernicious reach of the Protocol/Windsor Framework into the constitutional and economic operation of Northern Ireland as a part of the UK. Nor does it deliver us from the oppressive requirements of the ECHR, which must come on a UK wide basis under a future government”.