No one can stand by the dispatch box anymore and claim that the Protocol protects peace and stability in Northern Ireland. People have spoken. Every unionist candidate who ran in the election opposed the Protocol. Forty percent of all votes cast were explicitly for anti-protocol parties – a total of 360,000. The peace process in Northern Ireland has always progressed only with unionist and nationalist consent, and our political institutions depend on it. Yet no unionist supports the Protocol.
It was the Protocol, not Brexit, that created the border in the Irish Sea. As such, it poses an existential threat to the future of our place in the Union. No conservative or unionist government can stand by and watch the pro-union people of Northern Ireland diverge more and more from the rest of the United Kingdom. Checks at the Irish Sea border are a symptom of the main problem that Northern Ireland is subject to a different set of laws imposed by a foreign entity, without any opinion from any elected representative of its people.
It is important that only part of the Protocol is currently required. When fully implemented and the rest of the UK plows its own furrow, Northern Ireland will become so far from Britain that Westminster’s levers on our health services, Covid’s response or even financial aid to the economy will become very limited.
But this will not only affect Northern Ireland; the people of Britain will also feel the impact. Just weeks ago, the protection of animal welfare had to be postponed by Defra because the NI protocol would block their application throughout the United Kingdom. In addition, there is limited action by Westminster to ban ineffective Covid test kits. It is absurd for our government to give up the right to have a say in huge parts of the laws governing our economy that affect the people of Northern Ireland so directly.
The DUP seeks to restore democratic decision-making in the NI Assembly, but there must be a solid foundation, which means replacing the democratic deficit created by the Protocol. In addition to costing our economy £ 100,000 an hour, it has increased transport costs and set a boundary between us and our most important trading partner. This jeopardized our drug supplies during the pandemic.
While Brussels was closed a year ago for the need for change, we have since become convinced of many of the merits of our case. The government knows that the Protocol does not have the support of the Unionists, and Brussels acknowledges that it has cast a long shadow over the political arrangements of Northern Ireland.
Now is the time for the government to act. The Irish Sea border needs to be crossed urgently, with the protocol being replaced by agreements that restore our place in the UK’s internal market. We will evaluate all new arrangements against our seven tests to determine whether they respect NI’s position as part of the UK. All new arrangements must, first, comply with Article 6 of the Statute, which requires everyone in the United Kingdom to be entitled to the same privileges. Second and third, it must avoid any diversion of trade and any border in the Irish Sea. It must give the people of Northern Ireland a say in making the laws that govern them.
The checks should no longer apply to goods going from Northern Ireland to the United Kingdom or from the United Kingdom to Northern Ireland. It must ensure that no new regulatory barriers can be developed between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom unless agreed by the Executive and the Assembly of Northern Ireland. Finally, it must retain the letter and spirit of Northern Ireland’s constitutional guarantee, which requires the consent of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland to any reduction in its status in the United Kingdom.
But it is not enough for unionists to complain. We must follow a double strategy to prevent the salam of our constitutional position from being cut. This means a legislative change that provides meaningful protection for the union. Given the recent ruling of the Belfast Court of Appeal, which demonstrated the fragility of the much-lauded principle of agreeing to the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement, we must now insist that the guarantees we promised in 1998 be enshrined in law.
I would suggest adding an additional provision to the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which states that any change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom from 1998 onwards must require the consent of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland – or by referendum, or inter-community voting at the NI meeting.
Such a provision would be fully compatible with the suggestion of the government’s publicly stated position on Northern Ireland and would benefit its people. No one who believes in the democratic process could oppose it. After the election and as a way to gain more trust from the NI people, I will urge the government to propose such an amendment. Our ultimate protection will not be found in the constitutions, but in the will of the people. That is why we need to move in the right direction, overshadowing the Protocol and freeing ourselves to focus on issues that matter.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party
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