Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is leader of the Democratic Unionist Party and MP for Lagan Valley.
As of yesterday, Liz Truss is our new Prime Minister. Her red box has expanded continually as the leadership campaign drew to a close.
Its contents are weighty: Russia, Ukraine, China, inflation, labour shortage, soaring fuel and energy bills all require attention.
So too does our Union. Both candidates had plenty of warm words for the UK on the campaign trail, but such statements require policies which will cement the Union for future generations.
This week will also mark a year since I used a speech on 9 September 2021, to publicly warn the Government and Brussels that operating devolved government was incompatible with the imposition of Northern Ireland Protocol.
Following that speech, we gave 21 weeks for negotiations between London and Brussels to find a way forward which unionists could support. Instead, we received blunt statements from Brussels that there would be ‘no renegotiation’ of Protocol.
This unyielding attitude ignored the reality of the harm caused by the Protocol, with the Government being unable to extend tax breaks for energy saving schemes to Northern Ireland in March 2022 and having to unilaterally extend grace periods so frozen food could stay on supermarket shelves in this part of the UK.
Even in the face of severe economic and constitutional damage, the EU favoured the Protocol over helping Northern Irish families.
In May 2022 we had elections to the power-sharing institutions. Every unionist MLA elected to the Assembly is opposed the Protocol. As such, there is no cross-community consensus to fully restore the Assembly and Executive; in the midst of an economic crisis, we cannot sustain power sharing on a foundation which is being undermined by the sea border.
In June this year, the face of this Brussels deadlock, Boris Johnson and Truss rightly pressed ahead with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. This action was welcomed across the unionist family in Northern Ireland.
Whilst in essence it is only enabling legislation, the Bill will give ministers the power to set aside the harmful parts of the Protocol. It has passed its House of Commons stages and now awaits scrutiny by the House of Lords.
Sadly, some in the Lords have already started salivating in columns and tweets at the prospect of being able to delay and even derail the Bill. Their motives for doing so seem more grounded in settling old scores and damaging the Government than in protecting the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Indeed, those claiming this Bill endangers devolution are wrong. The very opposite is the case. Northern Ireland does not currently have a fully functioning Assembly or Executive because of the flawed and imbalanced Protocol that has eroded unionist support for the Belfast Agreement.
We operate power sharing in Northern Ireland, not majority rule. For devolution to work, it must be able to command the support of both communities. Trying to secure power sharing without unionist support is a contradiction in terms.
To address the cost-of-living crisis in Northern Ireland, the Government must replace the Protocol with arrangements which restore our place in the United Kingdom.
The energy and food security of the United Kingdom will require an immediate and robust response from the next prime minister. Yet both areas are heavily restricted under the Protocol.
Northern Ireland, with just three per cent the British population, supplies 20 per cent of the nation’s food. But because of the Protocol, farmers in Scotland can’t even sell their seed potatoes to their British neighbours in County Antrim.
It doesn’t end with seed potatoes. Farm machinery can’t be sold in Great Britain and moved to Northern Ireland if any British soil remains on the tyres. Cattle and sheep sold in Carlisle face weeks of form-filling purgatory if they are sold into Northern Ireland.
Steel imported from Great Britain to Northern Ireland now faces a 25 per cent tariff driving up the cost of building schools, hospitals, roads and houses. Medicines for human consumption are tied up in Protocol paperwork and within weeks, medicines for pets will not be able to move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
With taxation rules in Northern Ireland now subject to EU interference, if Truss is to help working families across the entire United Kingdom by securing our energy and food supplies, then placing the Northern Ireland Protocol on the long finger is not an option.
Instead, it would be better for Northern Ireland, and the entire United Kingdom, if the NI Protocol Bill can be moved forward as expeditiously as possible so as Treasury ministers can use their substantial firepower to help all parts of the United Kingdom.
I have worked in many negotiations to help cement peace and stability in Northern Ireland. I believe in negotiations and would prefer to have an agreed solution on the Protocol.
But in the absence of a willingness by Brussels to negotiate a better way forward, the Government will be left with no option but to proceed with this Bill.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is leader of the Democratic Unionist Party and MP for Lagan Valley.
As of yesterday, Liz Truss is our new Prime Minister. Her red box has expanded continually as the leadership campaign drew to a close.
Its contents are weighty: Russia, Ukraine, China, inflation, labour shortage, soaring fuel and energy bills all require attention.
So too does our Union. Both candidates had plenty of warm words for the UK on the campaign trail, but such statements require policies which will cement the Union for future generations.
This week will also mark a year since I used a speech on 9 September 2021, to publicly warn the Government and Brussels that operating devolved government was incompatible with the imposition of Northern Ireland Protocol.
Following that speech, we gave 21 weeks for negotiations between London and Brussels to find a way forward which unionists could support. Instead, we received blunt statements from Brussels that there would be ‘no renegotiation’ of Protocol.
This unyielding attitude ignored the reality of the harm caused by the Protocol, with the Government being unable to extend tax breaks for energy saving schemes to Northern Ireland in March 2022 and having to unilaterally extend grace periods so frozen food could stay on supermarket shelves in this part of the UK.
Even in the face of severe economic and constitutional damage, the EU favoured the Protocol over helping Northern Irish families.
In May 2022 we had elections to the power-sharing institutions. Every unionist MLA elected to the Assembly is opposed the Protocol. As such, there is no cross-community consensus to fully restore the Assembly and Executive; in the midst of an economic crisis, we cannot sustain power sharing on a foundation which is being undermined by the sea border.
In June this year, the face of this Brussels deadlock, Boris Johnson and Truss rightly pressed ahead with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. This action was welcomed across the unionist family in Northern Ireland.
Whilst in essence it is only enabling legislation, the Bill will give ministers the power to set aside the harmful parts of the Protocol. It has passed its House of Commons stages and now awaits scrutiny by the House of Lords.
Sadly, some in the Lords have already started salivating in columns and tweets at the prospect of being able to delay and even derail the Bill. Their motives for doing so seem more grounded in settling old scores and damaging the Government than in protecting the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Indeed, those claiming this Bill endangers devolution are wrong. The very opposite is the case. Northern Ireland does not currently have a fully functioning Assembly or Executive because of the flawed and imbalanced Protocol that has eroded unionist support for the Belfast Agreement.
We operate power sharing in Northern Ireland, not majority rule. For devolution to work, it must be able to command the support of both communities. Trying to secure power sharing without unionist support is a contradiction in terms.
To address the cost-of-living crisis in Northern Ireland, the Government must replace the Protocol with arrangements which restore our place in the United Kingdom.
The energy and food security of the United Kingdom will require an immediate and robust response from the next prime minister. Yet both areas are heavily restricted under the Protocol.
Northern Ireland, with just three per cent the British population, supplies 20 per cent of the nation’s food. But because of the Protocol, farmers in Scotland can’t even sell their seed potatoes to their British neighbours in County Antrim.
It doesn’t end with seed potatoes. Farm machinery can’t be sold in Great Britain and moved to Northern Ireland if any British soil remains on the tyres. Cattle and sheep sold in Carlisle face weeks of form-filling purgatory if they are sold into Northern Ireland.
Steel imported from Great Britain to Northern Ireland now faces a 25 per cent tariff driving up the cost of building schools, hospitals, roads and houses. Medicines for human consumption are tied up in Protocol paperwork and within weeks, medicines for pets will not be able to move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
With taxation rules in Northern Ireland now subject to EU interference, if Truss is to help working families across the entire United Kingdom by securing our energy and food supplies, then placing the Northern Ireland Protocol on the long finger is not an option.
Instead, it would be better for Northern Ireland, and the entire United Kingdom, if the NI Protocol Bill can be moved forward as expeditiously as possible so as Treasury ministers can use their substantial firepower to help all parts of the United Kingdom.
I have worked in many negotiations to help cement peace and stability in Northern Ireland. I believe in negotiations and would prefer to have an agreed solution on the Protocol.
But in the absence of a willingness by Brussels to negotiate a better way forward, the Government will be left with no option but to proceed with this Bill.