DUP ups the rhetoric over Protocol Bill saying it is the only hope of saving devolution and the Good Friday Agreement

The bill is due to come before the Lords on October 11, having already passed through the Commons.

Whilst the Conservatives enjoy an outright majority in the House of Commons, this is not so in the Lords.

The biggest single bloc of lords in the upper house is the Tory one (248 lords are Conservatives), but there are 166 Labour, 83 Lib Dem, and 221 crossbench / non-affiliated lords.

The bill, sponsored by Tory leader Liz Truss, risks being “massacred” by the lords, said Lord Hestletine yesterday.

It is expected that members of the House of Lords will try to alter it heavily, then pass it back to the House of Commons, basically jumbling the bill up and slowing it down.

Or, as the way the European Parliament describes it: “The bill will be debated, and possibly amended, in the House of Lords after the summer recess.

“Once the Lords has completed its third reading, the two Houses vote in turn until they agree on a common text, in a process known as ‘ping pong’.

“When both Houses have agreed on the content of a bill, it is then presented to the monarch for Royal Assent.”

Speaking this morning on RTE’s Morning Ireland radio show, farming minister (and former DUP leader) Edwin Poots said: “The Belfast / Good Friday Agreement was established on the basis of cross-community consent.

“And that cross-community consent has not been achieved.

“Therefore there will not be an Assembly and there will not be institutions of the Good Friday Agreement whilst we have the Protocol. The two things are incompatible.

“If the House of Lords decide to delay it, that could go on for another nine months.

“That’s just an entirely unacceptable and untenable position for us.

“There won’t be a Stormont government until this issue is resolved... therefore whenever Ireland invites President Biden to come over for the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement in Easter next year, unless something radical happens and the EU decide to become a bit more realistic, they may be coming over to the funeral of the Good Friday Agreement, not to a celebration of it.”

Meanwhile on the Nolan Show, Ian Paisley this morning said, in response to the claim that the bill faces a House of Lords “massacre”: “If that’s the case, then the House of Lords will be responsible for making sure devolution never returns to Northern Ireland.

“See the Protocol Bill went to the House of Lords with a massive majority from the elected house, and for unelected members – retirees in some cases – to come back and try to destroy the elected will of the national parties is actually wrong.

“If the House of Lords molest that bill and massacre it... well, all they’re doing is preventing the Assembly ever coming back.

“They’ve got to realise that the destiny of this at the moment rests in their hands.”

He said “every unionist in Northern Ireland” opposes it, “so for every day that people cling to and hold to this Protocol, and want this Protocol to stay in place and want it just tinkered with, there’ll be no Assembly”.

He added that “there’s people on the one-nation side of the Conservative Party who really haven’t a clue about unionism and Northern Ireland. They’re English nationalists... and they don’t really ‘get’ Northern Ireland and the fact the UK is made up of different nations”.

• 2021 census: Whilst nationalists hail results, opinion poll shows support for ending partition never rises above 30%

• SDLP man Justin McNulty labels Alliance a party of ‘cowards’ over refusal to take a position on the Union