Kate Hoey: Restoring the UK should be PM Rishi Sunak's priority, not Stormont

It is not the restoration of power-sharing in Stormont as some suggest.

For all who care about the Union, particularly members of the Conservative and Unionist Party, the threat to it caused by the Northern Ireland Protocol should be of great concern.

It is an indictment of the UK government that a border has been placed in the Irish Sea, something the Conservative Party promised “no British Prime Minster would ever do”.

The constitutional obligation on Rishi Sunak is to rectify that injustice which has been perpetrated upon British citizens here in Northern Ireland.

The test in terms of any solution to the Protocol is simple: does it restore the Acts of Union?

As my friend and Nobel peace prize winner, the late Lord Trimble accurately put it “the Act of Union is the Union”.

There has been much focus on ‘checks’, and talk of minimising or eliminating them as being the solution to the protocol.

But checks, bureaucracy and costs are only the symptom.

The shocking fact is that Northern Ireland has been left subject to European Union law, and as Lord Justice McCloskey put it in the High Court in Belfast more in the EU market than that of the United Kingdom.

We are subject to foreign laws under a foreign court abandoned to the will of the EU. So removing checks is only tinkering.

What is necessary is that the application of EU law and accompanying jurisdiction of the European Court is ended and Northern Ireland returned to an equal footing with the rest of the United Kingdom.

In the first of four days of committee stage of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill last week many of my fellow Lords talked about protecting the Belfast Agreement and implying that the protocol was needed to protect that agreement.

But, again, as the late Lord Trimble, said: “It is the protocol that has put a wedge right through the Agreement and is a potent threat to peace and stability in Northern Ireland."

Many in the Lords are determined to torpedo the Protocol Bill - a safeguard which made unionists feel that at least the government were prepared for a failure in negotiations with the EU.

We have seen nationalism demanding that the principle of consent be yet further overridden in order to impose Joint Authority on Northern Ireland.

Even the Alliance Party made supportive noises on this too.

That demonstrates how the apparent fidelity to the Belfast Agreement only lasts for so long as it is politically convenient.

Belatedly the Northern Ireland Office did rule Joint Authority out.

However at the same time they had become fixated on another Stormont assembly election.

Yet they tolerated Sinn Fein bringing down the executive for three years with no election called.

In the face of the barrage of vitriol that has been thrown at the DUP and TUV, and constant badgering by the NI ministers, unionism has stayed firm.

No wonder Northern Ireland people are infuriated and perplexed at the refusal of the UK government to stand up for its own citizens.

Ministers have shown no understanding, and indeed a complete disregard for the mandate given by the unionist community.

In May Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the leader of the DUP received a clear instruction from his voters to refuse to enter power-sharing until the protocol was removed.

The behaviour of the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) seeks to dismiss that mandate.

In effect, it is to say ‘we do not like that the unionist community endorsed this view, so we will keep going back until they give an answer more palatable’.

There is a ring of the EU in this, given they forced their member states to vote and vote again until they gave the right answer.

Those who say the election will change nothing are wrong. It will give an even stronger mandate to the DUP to stay out of Stormont until the protocol is gone.

The unionist and loyalist community don’t like being dictated to; they don’t like being lectured and they certainly don’t like the NIO telling them that their vote and the mandate they gave Sir Jeffrey Donaldson does not deserve to be respected.

Any trust there was in the government to do what they say they will do has disappeared.

Words mean nothing It is action that is needed.

The secretary of state for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris has failed completely to understand or appreciate the mood in unionist and loyalist communities. They need to engage more with those young people in loyalist areas and less time apologising to the Irish government.

It may make the secretary of state feel good that he has shown he won't u-turn on his pledge to call an election. But it won't sort out the protocol and until that happens devolution is finished.

This is the ultimate test for Rishi Sunak to prove his genuine support for our Union.

Baroness Hoey of Lyehill and Rathlin, is a non affiliated peer in the House of lords and a former Labour MP and minister in the UK government. This article was first published in the Daily Telegraph