Windsor Framework is more 'immediate threat' to Northern Ireland than a future border poll - TUV
The Irish Sea border is a much more immediate threat to Northern Ireland’s place in the Union than a border poll – and unionists need to ‘wake up’ to that danger, the TUV has said.
The party was responding to comments by the NIO minister Fleur Anderson, who said in an interview with the Agenda NI magazine that the criteria used by the NIO to make a decision on a future vote “would be based on opinion polls”.
A TUV spokesperson told the News Letter: “The immediate threat to Northern Ireland’s place within the UK comes not from a border poll but from the border which already exists between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
“We are constantly provided with evidence of this with some even questioning if the recent ruling of the UK Supreme Court on what defines a woman will have much impact in Northern Ireland because we are ruled by foreign laws.
“With Northern Ireland governed by the same laws as the Irish Republic in a plethora of areas of course the transition to an all Ireland will be made much easier.
“It is time that Unionists woke up to this danger and stopped being complicit in the destruction of the Union by sustaining a Protocol implementing executive.”
There has been uncertainty over whether a landmark ruling by the UK Supreme Court on how sex is defined in law will fully apply in Northern Ireland – because the Windsor Framework means the province must “keep pace” with rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
However, feminist campaigner Maya Forstater of Sex Matters said that the principle behind the ruling will also apply to the relevant legislation relating to men and women in Northern Ireland. She said she expects that the same conclusions would be reached in respect of the meaning of ‘sex’ in Northern Ireland discrimination law.
“Equality between women and men remains a fundamental principle under Article 2 and Article 3(2) of the EC Treaty and in the case law of the Court of Justice. Neither judges in Strasbourg or bureaucrats in Brussels have the power to hold back the tides or to decree that human beings aren’t mammals”, she said.
A Northern Ireland Office spokesperson said: “The responsibility for a referendum sits solely with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. This is clearly set out in the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which gives effect to the Good Friday Agreement and the principle of consent.
“This has been - and remains - the only condition. The Secretary of State has been clear that there is no evidence that this condition has been met.”