A delegation from the Ulster Unionist Party led by Justice Spokesperson Doug Beattie MC MLA, and including Steve Aiken MLA and John Stewart MLA, has met with the Attorney General John Larkin QC, to discuss a range of issues relating to the proposed EU Withdrawal Agreement.

Following the meeting Doug Beattie MC MLA said:

“We welcomed the opportunity to meet with the Attorney General to discuss a range of issues pertaining to how the proposed Withdrawal Agreement will affect Northern Ireland.

“It is clear that if this Agreement does come into being, Northern Ireland will remain subject to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). In fact, with matters that are in the jurisdiction of the ECJ, they will retain primacy in Northern Ireland while this would not be the case in the rest of the United Kingdom. They will also have an interpretive role in respect to the protocols of the agreement that cannot be challenged. This hardly tallies with the Prime Minister’s claim that we are taking back control of our own laws.

“If we ever do get an Assembly re-established here, its legislative role will be extremely limited, because it will have to adopt EU laws without question or having any ability to revise or amend.”   

Steve Aiken OBE MLA said:

“As a party we have been engaging with the widest range of business leaders and business groups, and now with the Attorney General, to get some sense of the implications that the activation of the protocol would have. It is obvious that the Assembly – if it ever comes back – would have a much diminished role. This would increasingly look like joint authority between the EU and the UK.”