Speaking in Lisburn on Thursday evening, TUV leader Jim Allister said any Unionist leader who now or “at some stage” embraces the Windsor Framework would be in flagrant breach of their solemn joint pledge of 28 September 2021.
On Ulster Day 2021 all unionist leaders united to pledge:-
“affirm our opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol, its mechanisms and structures and reaffirm our unalterable position that the Protocol must be rejected and replaced by arrangements which fully respect Northern Ireland’s position as a constituent and integral part of the United Kingdom”.
“Any unionist leader who at any stage accepts the Windsor Framework is
- inescapably accepting the “mechanisms and structures” of the Protocol, because these are unaltered by the Windsor Whitewash – nor can they be, because the legal constraints under which Windsor was agreed prohibits any change to “the essential elements” of the Protocol. (Art 164 Withdrawal Agreement)
- abandoning the promised ‘unalterable position’ of rejection of the Protocol, because it continues in all its essential parts.
- giving up on the undertaking to accept only arrangements which fully respect Northern Ireland’s position as a constituent and integral part of the United Kingdom.
“To accept the Windsor cloaked Protocol is to accept foreign rule and a foreign court through the foreign sovereignty of the EU and its Customs Code which holds GB to be the foreign territory. Such is to accept that NI will never again be an integral part of the U.K. You can’t be an integral part of the U.K. and be ruled not by British laws but foreign colonial laws. It’s as simple as that.
“So, I say to all who care about the Union, agreeing to implement the Protocol/Windsor through Stormont is not an option because the High Court in Rooney-v-Poots has made it very clear that to be in an Executive requires you by legal obligation to enforce the Protocol and its Irish Sea border. Not an option for any who took the Ulster Day pledge!”
ENDS
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