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Jim Allister has accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of insulting him and the members of the voting public who backed his party.

It comes after Mr Johnson declined to meet a TUV delegation whilst the Tory leader is on a visit to the Province, aimed at trying to resolve the impasse around getting Stormont up and running again.

The DUP is refusing to go into government unless the Protocol is dealt with to their satisfaction.

The TUV did not manage to translate their surge of votes in last week’s election into new MLAs, though it did clear about 8% of all first preference votes.

In a video to his followers today Mr Allister said the refusal of the PM to meet with him “is a calculated insult to the 65,000 voters who voted TUV just 10 days ago” [out of 874,000 voters]”.

He added: “Whether the PM likes it or not the reality is this: unless and until we are rid of this Protocol then there can never be political stability in NI.

“[That’s] because no unionist worthy of the name can accept a situation that the Protocol decrees and operates on the basis that GB is a foreign country and thus its goods must be checked coming to Northern Ireland.

“That’s so anathema to the very existence of the union that it’s something no unionist should even be contemplating implementing.”

He added that “unionism has nothing left to give” in the face of a Protocol which is “in part, designed for our own destruction”.

Mr Allister shared some correspondence between himself and the Northern Ireland Office, in which the latter blamed the lack of a meeting with the PM on diary pressures.

Instead, the NIO offered a meeting with Conor Burns, the junior Tory minister at the NIO.

Mr Allister replied in writing: “[T]he paltry offer of a meeting with the your junior minister is not acceptable.

“Yours in disgust, Jim Allister.”

EDITORIAL: If the prime minister is serious about helping unionism, he will meet Jim Allister today

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