Northern Ireland steel tariffs are due to the Protocol, not Brexit

Alliance MP Stephen Farry has urged the United Kingdom and the European Union to engage in negotiation to resolve the issue of steel tariffs (August 26).

He claiming that “as this is also an issue for companies in the Irish Republic who source their steel via a UK supply chain, it therefore negates a simplistic analysis that this is solely a consequence of the protocol”.

Basically Mr Farry is stating that because steel tariffs also apply to a foreign country (the Irish Republic), the tariffs applied to Northern Ireland, an integral part of the United Kingdom, are not as a result of the NI Protocol.

Such flawed logic!

Both Mr Farry and I live in the United Kingdom, yet these tariffs do not apply to steel transactions within Great Britain.

Therefore the only reason tariffs will apply to transactions between GB and NI is solely down to the protocol.

The Alliance Party wants the full implementation of the protocol, even though they know full well that this drives a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of our country, and increases costs to NI consumers.

It also drives a coach and horses through the Belfast Agreement, aided and abetted by an opportunist land-grabbing Irish government and an EU who couldn’t care less about protecting the Belfast Agreement so long as the UK is punished for having the temerity to vote to leave their private members club.

The Remain campaign lost the EU referendum in 2016 — it’s high time Farry and his party accepted this fact and focussed on serving their fellow UK citizens instead of pandering to the whims of the Irish Republic and the EU.

Jeff Partridge, Ballywalter