Climax of Protocol court battle: 'Whatever happens it will take political willpower to kill off the Irish Sea border'

The TUV leader made the comment in a joint statement alongside fellow Brexiteers Kate Hoey and Ben Habib, ahead of a hearing at the Supreme Court in London.

The case is an appeal against two earlier decisions to refuse a request for a judicial review into the "lawfulness and constitutionality" of the Protocol.

This request has already been turned down twice, and this hearing in London is the last chance to appeal those decisions.

The case is formally referred to as "an application by James Hugh Allister and others".

It rests on these elements:

Firstly, that the Protocol is incompatible with the Acts of Union 1800, "specifically with Article VI which provides that the subjects of Great Britain and Ireland shall be on the same footing with respect to trade" (according to the court's summary).

Secondly, that the Protocol is incompatible with the Northern Ireland Act 1998, in that “Northern Ireland in its entirety remains part of the United Kingdom and shall not cease to be so without the consent of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland voting in a poll…”

And thirdly, that the constitutional safeguard in section 42 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, requiring Assembly votes to have cross-community support, has been unlawfully undermined.

In addition, the appellants have alleged that the European Convention on Human Rights and EU law have been broken too.

The joint Allister-Hoey-Habib statement says Wednesday's hearing is "the culmination of the legal fight against the Union-dismantling Protocol".

It reads: "As applicants we are grateful to the widespread public and financial support which this case has enjoyed.

"This week we are looking to the Supreme Court for definitive determinations as to the breach of Article 6 of the Acts of Union which the Protocol inflicts and the consequences thereof, including what protection, if any, the Belfast Agreement affords against such constitutional change.

"It is very important to fully test these core legal issues, but, ultimately, the Protocol requires political defeat through holding tenaciously to the line: Stormont, or Protocol?

"There can be no let up in Unionist determination to remove the scourge of the Protocol from our backs."

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