Windsor Framework: TUV leader Jim Allister says Commons vote for Stormont Brake 'changes nothing' in terms of EU's 'ill-gotten sovereignty' over NI

Rishi Sunak’s new deal on post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland cleared its first Commons test despite opposition from some Tory MPs and the DUP.

MPs voted 515 to 29, majority 486, in favour of regulations to implement the Stormont brake section of the Windsor Framework.

Tory former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss said they would be voting against the Government ahead of the debate.

The European Research Group (ERG) of Tory MPs also said it was “strongly recommending” its members oppose the regulations.

TUV leader Jim Allister said the landslide vote "changes nothing".

“The predicted outcome of the vote changes nothing in terms of the unacceptability of the deceptive Windsor Framework," he told the News Letter.

"So long as the EU’s ill-gotten sovereignty over NI is not recovered by the UK and we are left, colony-like, under foreign laws and a foreign court and under an EU Customs Code which decrees NI as EU territory and GB as a foreign country, then, so long can no one who values the Union contemplate support for the Windsor Whitewash.

"It always has been and remains a sovereignty issue and only the satisfactory addressing of that will restore us to our place in the U.K.

“The key leverage which unionists have is Stormont and that must not be squandered by crawling back in to implement the very Protocol unionist leaders solemnly pledged to unalterably oppose. So, for TUV the fight goes on, because to accept Windsor is to accept that NI will never again be a full part of the U.K. Such is unconscionable and undoable for unionists of principle and conviction.”

Loyalist commentator and activist Jamie Bryson responded that any deal which is not supported by unionists will not secure stability.

“Nationalism’s precious Belfast Agreement, for all it’s faults, nevertheless did hand a cross community veto on power sharing to both communities,” he said.

“The outworking of that is that Parliament can pass whatever arrangements it wants, as many times as it wants, but, a bit like the Protocol, if those arrangements do not command the support of unionists then they will not secure power sharing, peace and stability in Northern Ireland.

“The Brake, useless as it is, could at least be used as a fall back position in the future to act as a platform from which to wage guerrilla war against EU law and create maximum instability. Nationalism don’t appear to appreciate that.

“But the issue is to even get to that point, unionism would be required to surrender and restore power sharing whilst the Acts of Union remain subjugated. No self respecting unionist will do that and I am confident the DUP and TUV will stand firm.

“The Government know there is a solution, and it is that those who export to the EU would sign up as exporters and as such opt in to assume the obligation to comply with EU law, and the default position for everyone else would be that UK law applies.

“That, in one swoop, would remedy almost all the constitutional issues. But of course the EU and nationalism don’t actually want a balanced solution; they want a Trojan horse to ratchet NI out of the Union.”

David Campbell, chairman of the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC), said the DUP still enjoys support from most of unionism.

Mr Campbell, a former chairman of the UUP, now chairs the group founded with the aid of Jonathan Powell. The LCC includes representatives from UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando terror groups.

“My sense is that the DUP continue to enjoy the overwhelming support of the unionist and loyalist electorate in the decision they took today,” he told the News Letter .

"The LCC commissioned its own legal opinion on the Stormont Brake and this confirmed the legal weakness and ambiguity in the proposed mechanism.

“We have repeatedly asked government to ensure the NI parties were an integral part of negotiations with Europe on replacing the Protocol.

"Again they have ignored advice and demonstrated that a solution based on spin and no substance may stand in London and Brussels but cuts no mustard in Belfast. There remains further work to be done and no support for a premature return to Stormont.”