Ulster Unionist leader, Steve Aiken OBE MLA, has warned that some of the measures which may form part of the EU Protocol would risk changing our terms of UK citizenship and internal UK trade, with checks on the luggage of passengers returning to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, and increased costs on goods brought in from Great Britain.

Mr Aiken said:

“I share the huge amount of frustration felt by many people in Northern Ireland regarding the lack of clarity and requirement for the enforcement of regulations around the NI Protocol, with only 24 days to go.

“That the EU Commission and Whitehall have pointedly ignored requests to provide as ‘light as touch as possible’ approach from Northern Ireland’s political leaders and now a very wide swathe of business and societal groups, highlights starkly that the various and plentiful public commitments to the ‘Belfast/Good Friday Agreement’ are mere lip service.

“We have now learned that the provisions that have been laid out or leaked, includes the right of EU Inspectors to demand the right to inspect baggage of UK citizens travelling within the UK. This is completely unacceptable. There is no basis for what will be a foreign power to have any rights of inspection of British citizens within our own country. To do so would be the clearest possible indication that our rights as UK citizens to travel freely within our own country have been infringed. Our citizenship is being changed before our very eyes.   

“Another suggestion is that EU Inspectors would have judicial powers, the right of inspection or the power to compel – and if so, under what possible legal system could they do this?

“There are very real fears that online purchases, including from the likes of Amazon will also be subject to inspection, which, coupled with potential customs declarations further add to the additional costs and impediments to everyday business and daily life that we are being subject to. This is changing the terms of trade within the United Kingdom and nobody in Northern Ireland voted for this.

“The UUP has, for years, been pointing out that the NI Protocol would give legal primacy to the ECJ above our own, UK and NI law – this again, is completely unacceptable.  Laws for our citizens are now made in Westminster and in Belfast, they should not, in any circumstances, be subservient to the EU. No matter what your views on BREXIT, that should be a fundamental principle of our rights as citizens of the United Kingdom.”