Windsor Framework: TUV leader Jim Allister to tell his party that they have steered corporate unionism through NI Protocol waters - and must do so again

Yesterday saw the Protocol replacement - the Windsor Framework - signed into international law by the UK and EU - but with the nonplussed DUP responding that such legislation is updated regularly when it is found to be "not fit for purpose".

Against this backdrop - and with local council elections looming on 18 May, the TUV leader is rallying his troops in the Royal Hotel in Cookstown for a sensitive election in unionism, which will doubtless be seen by many observers as an indicative poll on the unionist electorate's attitude to the WF.

In the 2022 Assembly election TUV won 7.6% of the vote, an increase of 5.1% from 2017. However a poll published by the Irish News-Institute of Irish Studies-University of Liverpool this week claimed the TUV had seen a reduction of 2.8% support in nine months.

In this context party leader Jim Allister is expected to offer some signature colourful oratory worthy of his early mentor Rev Ian Paisley.

"No doubt Unionism is heading into tricky waters, but resolution and principle are key to their navigation," he is expected to warn. "Already Doug Beattie has jumped ship to advocate Stormont operation of the very Protocol he pledged to unalterably oppose. Stand by for threats and inducements to coerce unionism back into Protocol-implementing Stormont. A tight budget is the start to aid orchestrated demands from sectors affected by cuts, to be followed by the hint and offers of a financial bung if only unionists would re-establish Stormont and enforce the Protocol."

He is expected to tell loyal followers, effectively that it has been the uncompromising stance of the TUV that has put steel into the DUP spine to stand against the Protocol.

"It was by voting TUV in their tens of thousands last May that grassroots unionists put strength into the DUP’s stance... There are signs, however, that injection of strength is wearing off, signs of wobble are evident. So, come 18th May let us increase the dose and again inject strength into the body politic of unionism."

There will be a swipe against DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson appointing a panel of senior party members and advisors to assess the deal - and a warning that accepting the WF will also win "the booby prize of a Sinn Fein First Minister who claims there was "no alternative to the murder of our kith and kin".

And despite the "exaggerated oversell" of the Prime Minister, the WF has changed nothing in the Protocol, he will claim.

"The EU’s ill-gotten sovereignty has not been recovered, Art 6 [which would allow the UK to suspend the Protocol] remains suspended, the European Court of Justice still rules, Irish Sea Border stays and Northern Ireland is still colonised by EU diktat."

In Churchillian tones, he will also denounce those who return to Stormont with the WF in place as part of "A Vichy Stormont for Protocol collaborators".

Guest speakers will include ex-Brexit Party MEP Ben Habbib. The conference is open to the public from 11am at the Royal Hotel, Cookstown.