Sinn Fein’s victory in the Stormont Assembly elections will send the message that the Northern Ireland Protocol is “business as usual”, said Sir Jeffrey Donaldson.
The DUP leader spoke at a rally in Bangor, Ko Down, where he said that both the UK government and the EU now recognize that the protocol needs to be changed.
Speaking before the rally, Sir Jeffrey said: “Unionism is united in opposition to the protocol. This must continue to be our focus.
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“There are too many divisions. These elections will be won and lost in transfers.
“I want every trade unionist to give preference to the DUP first, but I want them to continue and move on to other pro-union candidates.”
The rally is the latest in a series of events in Northern Ireland, outlining trade union and loyalist opposition to the post-Brexit protocol, which calls for additional checks on goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Britain.
It is strongly opposed by the Unionists as a border in the Irish Sea.
Earlier this year, the DUP stepped down from Stormont’s executive branch in protest of the protocol, and the party vowed not to re-enter government after Thursday’s election until their concerns were addressed.
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Sir Jeffrey continued: “The protocol increased the cost of transport between GB and NI by 27% and set a line between us and our most important trading partner – Britain, as well as jeopardizing our drug supplies in the midst of a health pandemic.
“We have made progress in convincing many of the merits of our case. From a position of no renegotiation, the EU and the government now recognize the need for change.
“The government knows that the Protocol does not enjoy the support of the Unionists, and Brussels has no doubt that the Protocol has cast a long shadow over the political arrangements of Northern Ireland.
“If Sinn Fein wins this election, the message to London, Dublin and Brussels will be as usual with the protocol.”
TUV leader Jim Alistair, Baroness Kate Howie and former Brexit MEP Ben Habib in Ballimena (Image: Mark Marlowe / PA)
TUV leader Jim Alistair, Baroness Kate Howie and former Brexit MEP Ben Habib, who are among the group that has launched a lawsuit against the protocol, which is due to be heard in the Supreme Court, also addressed the meeting.
They also spoke at an anti-protocol rally earlier in the day in Balimena, Ko Antrim.
Mr Alistair told the Co Antrim rally that there could be no return of the Stormont CEO until the protocol was removed.
A number of loyal gangs marched through Balimena before several hundred people gathered in the city center to hear speeches.
Mr Alistair said: “We need to bring the false Prime Minister who imposed this unjust protocol against us to the point where he has to make a choice.
“And the lever we have is to make the prime minister choose: do you want to keep the protocol, or do you want to save Stormont?”
“You can’t have both.
“And the reason I say you can’t have both is very simple: the price of Stormont is the implementation of the protocol, and it’s a price that no unionist can pay or ever had to pay.”
He added: “The main premise of the protocol is that Britain is a foreign country and that Northern Ireland, in terms of trade, is an integral part of the EU of what will be an economically integrated island of Ireland.
“Declaring Britain a ‘third’ or foreign country is at the heart of the Union.
“It is no wonder that the Court of Appeal has recognized that the Protocol has subordinated Article 6 of the Union’s acts – the very basis of the Union’s economic union.
Lady Howie said: “I think people in the pro-union community are angry.
“I think we are angry at the way Northern Ireland has been treated by our own government, but also especially by the way the Irish government and the European Union have agreed together to do what they can to separate Northern Ireland. from the rest of the UK.
“I think we all know how the protocol separated Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom, the principle of consent that was so important to the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement that many of us voted for.
“Now how betrayed we feel that the principle of consent has been repealed by our own government and by the European Union, which is using Northern Ireland to punish the rest of the United Kingdom.
“The price of Brexit for the people of the European Parliament will be Northern Ireland. Well, we will not allow this to happen.
“None of us wants to go back to the terrible days of violence, but we cannot have a situation where our government ignores the majority community in Northern Ireland.”
Referring to the Stormont election on Thursday, Mr Habib said: “We must have a union majority in Stormont, we must use this union majority to overthrow Stormont.
“There can be no Stormont as long as the protocol exists.
“If we get this union majority, then it is up to you to hold these politicians accountable, to make sure they keep what they promised, namely not to allow the executive to form and to ensure that Stormont is not reformed until the protocol enters into force. .
“You can’t have Stormont and the protocol, the protocol must be first.
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