For the TUV, and I believe Unionism in general, the Protocol has always been a sovereignty issue. Thus, any way forward must free us from foreign laws, foreign control and foreign adjudication.
Such is only obtainable by full restoration of Northern Ireland to the Union which created the United Kingdom. This, inescapably, requires full respect for the ‘equal footing’ principle of Article 6 of the Acts of Union in respect of trade between and within the UK, which is the economic basis of the Union and the very thing that the Protocol in the EU’s sovereignty grab has trashed.
Entrenched protection against dilution of the Union, economic or political, would be provided by the Centre for the Union’s proposed Constitutional Bill.
The practicalities of an international border between the UK and the EU must wholly accord with the unequivocal restoration of Northern Ireland’s place within the UK Thus, it is not for the UK to act as the EU’s surrogate in protecting its single market, but for the EU to govern and control its own single market on its own territory. How it does that is a matter for Brussels, not London.
The furthest the UK can go is, as indicated in the Centre for the Union’s paper, 'Restoring Northern Ireland place in the Union, 2023', is to give the neighbourly assistance of discouraging, through legislation, exports to the EU which infringe its standards.
It is not the UK, but the EU, which is claiming legislative and administrative control over another’s territory and, therefore, any solution can only lie in the reversal of that dynamic.”
12/1/23
Jim Allister wisely wrote recently: "It is not the UK, but the EU, which is claiming legislative and administrative control over another’s territory and, therefore, any solution can only lie in the reversal of that dynamic.”
Yesterdays attempt by Sinn Fein's President, Mary Lou McDonald to push the territorial boundaries between two Sovereign States - the Irish Republic and Great Britain & Northern Ireland - by gate-crashing a planned meeting of British politicians, only goes to support what Mr Allister has previously stated above.
As a Member of the Government of the Irish Republic - a foreign jurisdiction firmly aligned to the European Union - Ms McDonald had absolutely no legitimate purpose in trying to interpose herself into a…
9/1/23
Jim Allister KC MLA states: For the TUV, and I believe Unionism in general, the Protocol has always been a sovereignty issue. Thus, any way forward must free us from foreign laws, foreign control and foreign adjudication.
Well said, Sir. Internationally recognised Political Philosophy has always taken the territorial integrity of any legitimate Nation State as a given. We either have a Nation State whose territorial and political borders are legitimately determined by National Sovereignty, or we do not have a genuine, internationally recognised, Nation State.
While the so-called Protocol remains in existence - the State of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, UK, can only exist as a figment of ones imagination - having no Sovereign boundaries; no Sovereign…