Protocol challengers: The UK’s highest court has confirmed our fears about the constitutional impact of the Irish Sea border

Our two year legal battle to have the Northern Ireland Protocol judged unlawful has come to an end.

Enormous thanks to those who have supported this litigation, many of whom have done so financially.

Thanks too to our brilliant legal team, John Larkin KC, Denise Kiley and Colin Dougan. They mounted a first-class challenge in what was always going to be an uphill struggle.

Enormous gratitude must also go to the News Letter for following the litigation and our campaign.

Those who have followed it will recall when we resorted to the courts we did so reluctantly. Only after it became clear Westminster and government were not prepared to put right the enormous constitutional self-harm visited upon the United Kingdom by the protocol did we embark on litigation.

The protocol drives a wedge into the East/West dimension of the Belfast Agreement, the requirements for cross community consent and consent in general for fundamental changes to the constitutional settlement for Northern Ireland.

In 1998 the late Lord Trimble, who was until his death a co-litigant, remarked “the Act(s) of Union are the Union”. He was correct.

The Conservative and Unionist Party’s core manifesto pledge in 2019 was to deliver the country out of the EU as one United Kingdom. It failed in that fundamentally important pledge to Get Brexit Done. Northern Ireland was to a significant legal and economic extent left behind in the EU.

The adjudication by the Supreme Court yesterday confirmed unequivocally our fears of the damage done by the protocol.

It confirmed British citizens in Northern Ireland are not on the same footing as those in Great Britain.

It accepted Article VI of the Acts of Union had been subjugated by it.

Moreover, it also confirmed the requirement for consent to these changes was stepped over by government.

Like the lower courts, it somehow managed to justify these acts by Parliament and government but rule it did that our contentions about the constitutional damage done by the protocol were correct.

Cross-community consent is a corner stone of the Belfast Agreement. That a major constitutional change could be imposed on Northern Ireland without that consent is not only instructive of government’s attitude to the integrity of the country and its pledges to the British people.

It is also instructive of how the Belfast Agreement is applied when unionists need its protection. The principle of consent is not the safeguard unionism was promised in 1998.

The government and Irish nationalists may take succour from the narrow aspect of the court ruling the protocol to be legal. They should not. Its legality does not justify or excuse the damage it has done to Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom or the peace process in Northern Ireland as well as to relationship between Northern Ireland and its neighbours, the Republic of Ireland.

With this ruling from the Supreme Court the less than constructive ambiguity deployed by those who designed, promoted and signed the protocol has been blown away. The duplicity of the protocol claiming Northern Ireland to be in the UK’s customs union and championing itself as a protector of the Belfast Agreement has been revealed.

The protocol has totally undermined the delicate political balances in Northern Ireland and done more than anything else to undermine the Belfast Agreement and its successors. No Parliamentarian can now get up in Westminster and deny these facts.

Our cause to restore Northern Ireland’s rightful place within the Union will continue. It is a just cause and one that cannot be lost. We can now build on the sure foundations and constitutional clarity provided to all by the Supreme Court.

Our battle started in the political arena; the courts have confirmed our worst fears; and with that confirmation we shall return to the political fray.

The people of Northern Ireland have been let down by those who signed and supported the Withdrawal Agreement that contained the Northern Ireland Protocol. Now is the time for the government to realise the scale of the fundamental mistakes that were made and take action to restore Northern Ireland’s place within the economic and constitutional union of the United Kingdom.

The longer the protocol remains the more it will harm the Union. The government knows that the protocol does not enjoy the support of unionists and it will never be supported. It must be replaced by arrangements that respect Northern Ireland’s position as part of the UK.

Any ‘deal’ arising from negotiations between the UK government and the European Union will be judged, amongst other things, against the yardstick of whether it will undo the position confirmed by the Supreme Court.

The checks on the Irish Sea border are the symptom of the underlying problem namely that Northern Ireland is subject to a different set of laws imposed upon us by a foreign entity without any say or vote by any elected representative of the people of Northern Ireland.

There can be no laws in Northern Ireland made by a foreign power, imposed by that power and adjudicated by its courts.

Nor can our trade within the United Kingdom be governed by the EU Customs code which treats Great Britain as a foreign/third country whose goods must be checked.

The suspension of Art 6 of the Acts of Union must be reversed to perfect our restoration within the UK. These are non-negotiable issues which must be remedied by the UK government.

Failure to do so will mean any “deal” will not be supported by unionists and without such the situation in Northern Ireland will not be resolved.

A month ago the prime minister outlined his five point plan for 2023. To that he must add a sixth: Restore Northern Ireland to its rightful place in the United Kingdom.

• Editorial: Ruling has, as unionists say, shown the impact of the protocol

• Paul Bew: The constitutional status of NI is unchanged but unionist alienation must be addressed