Unionists challenge EU protocol

DEMOCRATIC Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster and senior party MPs are launching legal action challenging the Northern Ireland Protocol.

They will be joining other unionists from across the UK in judicial review proceedings, unless alternative post-Brexit trade arrangements are put in place which secure their consent.

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds, the party’s Westminster leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and chief whip Sammy Wilson are backing Mrs Foster’s action in response to disruption of business through Irish Sea ports.

A separate group of DUP members has also engaged senior legal counsel to prepare for a series of challenges to the protocol.

Mrs Foster said: “At the core of the Belfast Agreement was the principle of consent, yet the Northern Ireland Protocol has driven a coach and horses through both the Act of Union and the Belfast Agreement.”

The move comes amid ongoing anger at new regulatory and customs processes required to bring goods into Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK across a socalled border in the Irish Sea.