Northern Ireland protocol not shattered constitutional status of UK: lawyer

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Northern Ireland protocol not shattered constitutional status of UK: lawyer

A government lawyer told a court in Belfast that the Northern Ireland protocol hasn't shattered the constitutional status of Northern Ireland within the UK.

Tony McGleenan QC was opening his defence of the protocol against a legal challenge brought by a group of unionist politicians including the Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister, former Labour Party MP Kate Hoey and former Brexit party MEP Ben Habib.

They have contested that the withdrawal agreement and act of parliament changed the constitutional status of Northern Ireland and was in conflict with the Acts of Union from 1800.

McGleenan rejected those arguments. He told senior judges: There has not been a change to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. He said that the suggestion that there has been some shattering of the union is not sustainable. The Northern Ireland protocol came into force on January 1 and mandates checks and controls on goods crossing from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. The EU single market has customs and standards checks still on goods entering the region because of the Brexit compromise to avoid a border on the island of Ireland.

In reviewing the course of the UK's departure from the EU, McGleenan argued that the political cost of the withdrawal agreement including the section on Northern Ireland was known to the parties involved in the case, with two of them expressing strong support for it. It had been subject to a debate for three years and its political force was expressed by two of the parties involved in the case, Habib and Hoey.

The protocol is unconstitutional, according to those taking the case, because it conflicts with the Good Friday agreement of 1998 and the Acts of Union. The high court rejected their first challenge this summer, and they are appealing against that verdict in an expedited case.

John Larkin QC, for the appellants, said references to the debate in parliament and expressions of support or otherwise for Brexit were a distraction because legally all were the words of the parliament's statutes.

On Monday, judges were told that the Acts of Union had legal supremacy over the protocol. Larkin said that the protocol could not be validly made because it is in conflict with a provision of the constitution of the United Kingdom that is Article 6 of the Acts of the Union. On Tuesday, McGleenan challenged the claim, saying that the Act of Union has interpretative supremacy, that it dominates later provisions, we say that is wrong.

He said that even if there were conflicts between the 1800 law and the protocol, they were legally irrelevant as section 7 a of the Withdrawal Act allowed the protocol to continue to have effect in domestic law.