Jim Allister: Those who sought to mislead you over the Irish Sea border now want your vote - the TUV, in contrast, has been consistent about the frontier

This election essay from the leader of Traditional Unionist Voice is the first of three such essays from the leaders of the three unionist parties, TUV, Ulster Unionist and DUP. Doug Beattie and Gavin Robinson will follow in the coming weeks:

In this election the issues boil down to two fundamentals in politics - trust and sovereignty.

In February the DUP claimed that the Irish Sea border was gone. “Zero checks, zero paperwork” was the infamous boast.

Not only was the sea border supposed to be gone, the pipeline of European Union law into Northern Ireland was allegedly severed and our place restored in the United Kingdom.

Only after the election was called did the DUP’s tune change and they grudgingly admitted their spin was false.

Now those who sought to mislead you think they deserve your vote, claiming they will now do what they claimed they had already done. Effectively, the pitch is we misled you in February but vote for us in July nonetheless!

Is that good enough for you?

TUV, in contrast, has been consistent, telling the truth about the sea border and its ramifications. We believe trust and integrity still matter in politics.

If you vote for the same old parties which let you down before don’t be surprised if they let you down again.

The other core issue in this election is sovereignty.

This week we celebrated the 80th anniversary of D-Day. D-Day was in part about guaranteeing for Europe many of the things we take for granted today – replacing dictatorship with the right of the people to decide who governs them.

Remarkably, while on 4th July you will elect MPs to what is supposedly our sovereign parliament something like 60% of the laws governing our Northern Ireland economy will continue to made not in London or Belfast but in a foreign parliament in Brussels.

No other country in the world would tolerate a situation where 1.9 million of its citizens are ruled by laws they do not make and cannot change.

The continuing protocol is about much more than constitutional issues, but touches many facets of everyday life.

The EU is currently proposing to ban the use of amalgam in dental fillings from 1 January 2025, making some NHS dental services unsustainable because the alternatives to amalgam are so much more expensive.

It is absurd that a foreign parliament – unelected by the people of Northern Ireland and unaccountable to us – should be making our laws on anything, but that they should be making laws that have the potential to place an important aspect of one of our great national institutions, the NHS, in jeopardy, is intolerable.

Similarly, the recent ruling that UK immigration policy doesn’t apply in Northern Ireland because EU law trumps British law opens the door to a potential flood of illegal immigrants to our province, seeing Ulster as a soft touch.

Then you have the example of crisps.

Just this week we learned that the EU plans to dictate that Tayto in Northern Ireland must stop producing Smoky Bacon crisps. The latest zany plan out of Brussels is to ban the use of smoke flavourings in crisps, which, of course, will hit our legendary Tayto factory at Tandragee.

Potato crisp factories in Great Britain could still produce such crisps, but not here because of our subjection to EU law.

Not satisfied with diktats over what fillings can be put in our teeth, now the EU wishes to control what snacks we can eat!

This is unaccountable EU colonial rule dominating every facet of our lives.

It all flows, of course, from the abandonment of sovereignty over much of Northern Ireland’s economic life to the EU through the iniquitous protocol.

Importantly, these EU laws which govern our economy and which are driving the wedge between Northern Ireland and GB are the very same laws which prevail in the Republic of Ireland, creating dynamic alignment on all all-Ireland basis.

The EU plan is obvious – divert trade away from our natural partner in Great Britain and towards the Republic (the economist Dr Esmond Birnie’s essay in the News Letter yesterday confirmed that that is already happening. Where the economics flows the politics will follow.

While some claim they have made progress on the protocol the facts – whether one considers dentistry, migration, legacy legislation or even crisps tell a very different story. Our Union is being dismantled before our eyes. Hence our mission is to restore the Union.

Remarkably, TUV is the only party in this election which has been clear and consistent in what should be a basic unionist demand, the full restoration of the Acts of Union.

As confirmed by independent legal option, Article Six of the Acts of Union which guarantees freedom of trade between and within the different parts of the UK has been suspended by the protocol.

This will remain the case for as long as Northern Ireland remains trapped within the EU single market and customs union.

That basic reality means that Great Britain, the rest of our own nation and to whose capital we will elect MP, is treated as a foreign country in trading terms.

Some who recognise their credibly with the unionist electorate is shot, are resorting to calling TUV vote splitters. But consider the facts. TUV offered a deal to keep unionism united. Our suggestion would have seen a single pro Union candidates in each of the 18 seats. This was dismissed out of hand by the DUP and particularly by their current leader.

Remember too that on Ulster Day 2021 all Unionist leaders gave their solemn promise to you that it was our “unalterable position that the protocol must be rejected and replaced by arrangements which fully respect Northern Ireland’s position as a constituent and integral part of the United Kingdom”.

TUV remains true to that promise.

Others binned it once elections were out of the way.

That being the case, how much faith can you put in their promises in this election?

Those who have somersaulted to be protocol implementers have divided unionism.

Vote for the candidate of a party of protocol implementers, and that’s exactly what you’ll get!

• Jim Allister KC is TUV leader and MLA for North Antrim. In coming Saturdays we will run election essays by the UUP leader Doug Beattie MLA and the DUP leader Gavin Robinson MP