Jim Allister rages at NI Protocol as ‘building block to Irish unity' during Glasgow Twelfth
The Windsor Framework was agreed between the government and EU in 2023 following unionist concerns over trade barriers under their original post-Brexit deal, the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Allister has previously said the framework was "the original protocol by another name".
Speaking in Glasgow he said the constitutional basis of Scotland's membership of the UK, the Act of Union 1707, and Northern Ireland's, the Act of Union 1800, are identical in form and substance.
'Each is built on the twin pillars of a political union and an economic union,' he told those in attendance.
'Article 3 of each of our Acts of Union affirm a political union through a single sovereign parliament for the whole nation; and each of our Articles 6 guarantee unfettered trade between and within all parts of the Kingdom.
'It is the latter, of course, that has been trashed by the union-dismantling Windsor Framework, because it fetters trade with NI by establishing an EU border to entrap NI within its territory and control.
'Whereas England, Scotland and Wales left the EU, Northern Ireland was left behind under its Customs Code and in its single market for goods, meaning in 300 areas of law we are governed by foreign laws we don't make and can't change.'
He described it as 'a democratic outrage' and 'a deliberate building block for Irish unity' as NI is now governed in those 300 areas by the identical laws as the Republic of Ireland.
Mr Allister added: 'And as these are the laws that shape our trade and economy they are inexorably building the stepping stone of an all-Ireland economy, which always was the intended design of the Windsor Framework.
'Hence, why anyone worthy of the name 'unionist' rejects the Windsor Framework in all its parts.'
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