Letters: Tinkering with protocol will not suffice

The suspicion within unionism is mounting around the careful linguistic choreography being played out by the EU, the British government, and the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar.

The panic has set in as we head towards the anniversary of the failed and discredited Belfast Agreement in April and all and sundry are desperate to cobble together a deal and cajole unionists into an executive to provide a veneer of respectability to the sordid appeasement process to the outside world.

The attempts at backtracking from Varadkar from his previous fanatical position on the protocol is easily seen through; indeed, his most recent attempts at a more conciliatory tone are revealing in the detail, as he bizarrely cites Brexit as not having cross-community consent.

Brexit didn't require cross-community consent, it was a UK-wide referendum, which was clear and unequivocal; we voted to leave as a United Kingdom in all its constituent parts.

The disapplying of Article 6 from the Acts of Union, the very bedrock of our constitutional position within the UK, and its subsequent enabling of the internal border between NI and GB, was not on the ballot paper and not what I and over 17 million others voted for.

Brexit has not been delivered, and until it is, no unionist should tolerate second-class citizenship in the United Kingdom.

In any forthcoming negotiations, let me be clear about the NI Protocol; it must be totally eradicated, with no tinkering, no red and green lanes, and no amendments.

There must be a complete Brexit for all of the United Kingdom on an equal footing across our four nations.

Nothing else is acceptable.

The protocol must go.

Cllr Stephen Cooper, TUV, Comber