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THE EU MUST drop the pretence that the Northern Ireland Protocol is designed to protect the peace process, the DUP leader has said.
Jeffrey Donaldson said unionism is “rapidly losing faith” that a negotiated solution to issues with the protocol can be achieved through the ongoing negotiations between the EU and UK.
The DUP leader, who has repeatedly called on the UK Government to suspend the trading arrangements by triggering the Article 16 mechanism, was speaking after a virtual meeting with European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic.
Earlier this month, Donaldson pulled DUP First Minister Paul Givan out of the Stormont Executive in protest at the protocol – a move that removed the powersharing administration’s ability to make any significant decisions.
Sefcovic has been holding talks with the main Stormont leaders ahead of next week’s meeting of the EU/UK joint committee on implementing the protocol.
Four of the five main Stormont parties also held talks with Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney today. Donaldson could not meet Coveney in person in Belfast due to travel logistics but is expected to speak with him in the coming days.
Donaldson, who last year stopped his ministers participating in cross border political meetings as part of his campaign against the protocol, said it is the “greatest threat to progress and prosperity in Northern Ireland of our generation”.
He added: “The EU can no longer keep up the pretence that the protocol was about protecting peace.
“The Irish Sea border does not have the support of a single unionist elected representative. It is divisive and undemocratic. It trashes the cross-community consent principle. The absence of a functioning Executive or North-South structures demonstrates that the protocol is an unrivalled danger to fairness and progress in Northern Ireland.
“Unionism is rapidly losing faith that a negotiated solution is possible.
“It is time for the Government to take actions which restores fairness and reinstates Northern Ireland’s access to the UK internal market. This is the only way to build a better future for everyone in Northern Ireland.”
Sinn Féin’s Stormont leader Michelle O’Neill, who was automatically removed as deputy First Minister when Mr Givan quit, held talks with Mr Sefcovic and Mr Coveney on Thursday.
She said the majority of people in Northern Ireland do not support the triggering of Article 16.
“There’s no desire here on the part of the wider society around the triggering of Article 16,” she said.
O’Neill said her engagements with Coveney and Sefcovic were “very timely” in advance of next week’s joint committee meeting.
“We hope that there are solutions to be found, if that’s the case remains to be seen,” she said.
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Jeffrey you and the DUP wanted this Brexit and Theresa May tried to bring through a compromise but no your party would not accept that so what happened you brought down Theresa May and got in Boris Johnson and when he didn’t need your votes he threw you under the bus in other words the Tory Party does not need you anymore
@Paul Maguire: Actually May’s compromise only came after she had proposed a Northern Ireland-only version of the backstop, against which the DUP protested. Her compromise consisted in making it apply to the UK as a whole. But that was not acceptable to many Brexiteer Tory backbenchers.
So after Johnson got his 80 seat majority and the DUP were no longer needed, he simply dusted off May’s old proposals and got it through the Commons – incidentally never intending to stick with it.
So to be fair the Tories do actually still need the DUP, to protest against the protocol, because their intention has always been to use NI to try to have their Brexit cake and eat it.
Just puck off Jeff
You were quiet happy with Brexit and the Protocol until the UDA told you otherwise. Go and sort your grievances with them.
@James Beattie: your playing a blinder Jeff on the road to nowhere
Donaldson won’t accept the DUP are on their way out. The party is living on past glories but the reality is times are changing as are the demographics and new generation.
Donaldson should be big enough to admit in public that Brexit and not the protocol is the problem and the DUP made a mistake in supporting it.
There’s one thing for sure. Jeffrey and his DUP chums are doing everything but protect peace.
Jeffrey Donaldson must drop the pretence that DUP can work with others. Supporting Brexit for DUP was purely a man sawing the branch off the tree while sitting on the branch.
The DUP are absolutely freaking out that the Brexit protocol has actually brought the north and the south of the country closer together economically. Exports and imports across the border has increased exponentially whereas imports from the UK have fallen. Northern Ireland has been insulated from the catastrophic damage that Brexit has done to Britain by the protocol. Only a lunatic would try and have it overturned. Like a Turkey voting for Christmas.
@Skipper Mac: absolutely agree
@Skipper Mac: unfortunately that’s the standard DUP response to everything that doesn’t suit their bigotted agenda; they will bite off their nose to spite their face!
@Skipper Mac: @Skipper Mac: unfortunately that’s the standard DUP response to everything that doesn’t suit their bigotted agenda; they will cut off their nose to spite their face!
@Skipper Mac: unfortunately that’s the standard DUP response to everything that doesn’t suit their bigotted agenda; they will cut off their nose to their face!
You, Jeffrey and your colleagues are the party of yesteryear. In your desperation to be English, you’ve gone against the Remain majority in N.I. and have issues with an economy there that has the best of both worlds. As you slide bleating into irrelevance is it not time for you to shut your trap and lie down.
The death rattle of a dying political party
Jeff said eff all about buses being burnt out by loyalist terrorists.
@Pete Gilmartin: surely you didn’t expect him to! After all, it was he who told them to burn the busses in the first place!
It’s pretty obvious the man is trying to make himself relevent even though he and his party suported the Tories through think and thin while throwing his own constituants under the bus.
The man hasn’t got the cahonas to resign his seat in London,
The man is a disgrace to his country!
Agh straight from Putin’s school of diplomacy…
This guy :) this guy just cracks me up. Jeffrey….jog on you mendacious, idle bigot. You bet the house on a nag and you lost your shirt :) :)
All we hear from the DUP are threats, and there will be consequences as the Loyalist Population are not happy with the Protocol. What is their solution apart from doing away with the Protocol (despite the majority in N.I. being in favour of it), they have brought nothing to the negotiation Table apart from blaming everyone else. Isn’t it strange all the anti Protocol Violence started up about a week after the DUP met the Loyalist Paramilitary Groups spokespersons last year. I wonder what was said at that meeting. Did the DUP encourage Restraint.
Protocol stays it was agreed on the British government sold the people of the six counties out
Thick and thin.
@Paul Mc: but mainly thick
What unionist leader would want to fight an election while sharing government with nationalists (especially SF)? As for Brexit and the Irish Sea border? Best thing ever for Norn Iron. A foot in the EU and UK.
Tommy says Jeffrey needs to bugger off
I’m other words, the DUP is haemorrhaging support. Well tough! That’s the way politics works. When you don’t have the support of the people you shut up and sit down! But apparently not the DUP!
Get in sea you complete and utter despot.
DUP need to realize that Unionism is a pipe dream, the “motherland” has shown time and time again that they don’t give a single damn about them. The DUP need to be proud of their home land of Northern Ireland, they are Northern Irish.
Many comments here show that while we expect Loyalists to recognise their malevolence towards Nationalists many don’t show any empathy for their position. Magnanimity towards enemies will defuse animosity, as shown by Mandela.
@Liam Hunter: Dream on! The Blue Shirts spent the last 50 years grovelling to the Half-Crown loyalists & it didn’t work, what makes you think that it will suddenly work now?
Maybe he should stop saying brexit is damaging the economy in northern ireland. They have the best of both worlds!!
The protocol gives them a unique position which is worth billions of pounds and euros and yet he complains.
Noting unusal with that as one, it is not there idea and two SF support it.
Thats enough for a Ulster says NO.
Except Ulster said they wanted to stay in the EU and according to polls, Ulster says the protocol is not the biggest problem they have. Health and social issues are as they are underfunded.
Here is the opportunity to have that funding and he says no. The tax revenues would be massive if they followed the protocol properly.
Instead they follow a dream or a memory that nobody else has.
They are shown respect and show none back, they are offered support and refuse it.
You can be moderate in the DUP but once you take the top job, all that goes out the window.
Hopefully the middle ground will benefit from the DUPs self combustion and not the TUV or others who are even more dug into that very old and dangerous mind set.
DUP should drop pretence that they are protecting peace.
DUP need to drop the thinly veiled threats that they will cause violence if they don’t get their way.
DUP essentially saying they expect terrorist acts, but not condemning them.
have your say