Jim Allister: Glib unionists who want Northern Ireland in the EU single market show lamentable failure to see that it puts us on an all-island path

The essence of Brexit was to liberate the United Kingdom from European Union control and place us in a different economic and political orbit.

And so over time the EU will follow its course and the UK will increasingly diverge in a path of its own choosing.

But, for Northern Ireland things will be very different if we remain in the EU single market because we will be tethered to not just EU rules but the economic orbit of the Republic of Ireland (RoI) while Great Britain moves in a diverging direction.

Even though only 7% of Northern Ireland’s sales are with the Republic* and our biggest trading partner by far is Great Britain, protocol advocates insist keeping us in the EU’s single market is for our own good.

Unsurprisingly, they are wrong, just as it is a fallacy to speak of ‘the best of both worlds’.

As these are diverging worlds we will increasing be corralled in the ROI/EU world, which, of course, always was the political intent of the protocol.

Indeed, under the EU Customs Code, which is applied to NI by Art 5(3) of the protocol, exit declarations are to be required for all goods traded from Northern Ireland to Great Britain, presenting a further significant disincentive to inter-UK trade and encouragement for business to orientate to ROI/EU instead.

TUV’s opposition to being in the EU single market centres on the political and constitutional price it demands:

Subjection, colony like, to a vast panoply of foreign laws we don’t make and can’t change.

These are not immaterial laws but those that shape and order our economy, including how we manufacture our goods and foods, how we trade them, how we even package them etc.

The fact the European Union is so precious about its single market confirms its centrality to sustaining the political entity that is the EU.

Under Single Market and Customs Code rules imposed by the protocol Northern Ireland is EU territory.

Hence the positioning of the border posts at our ports, the points of entry!

It is Brussels’ laws, not British laws which govern.

Consequently, the European Court of Justice becomes our Supreme Court on all single market and customs code issues.

This is of huge constitutional significance.

To be in the EU single market with GB diverging is to become increasingly detached from the nation of which we wish to be a part.

And the other side of that coin is increasing integration into an all-Ireland economically. It being a short step thereafter to political union.

Being in the EU single market and under its customs code is the reason why the UK Supreme Court ruled the foundational Article 6 of the Acts of Union is in suspension.

That is the price of being in the EU single market.

So, when some glibly say we must be in the EU single market to, for example, facilitate our liquid milk market or some other niche part of our economy (not true, of course, because anyone can trade into the EU as countless countries do from outside their single market), they demonstrate either a lamentable lack of understanding of the constitutional implications or care nothing for that which sustains the Union that matters to Northern Ireland, that with Great Britain.

As with so much of the protocol the irreducible and key issue is sovereignty.

Trade sovereignty for the single market and you do indeed buy a mess of potage.

​

* NI Economic Trade Statistics 2021, published 14 December 2022

​

​

• Jim Allister KC is MLA for North Antrim and leader of Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV)

​

​