 Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this webinar on the IEA platform with Sir Jeffrey Donelson, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland. My name is Dahio Kallig, and I'm the chair of the UK group in the Institute. I'd like to remind you that you can ask questions throughout the presentation, and we will endeavor to put as many of them as possible to Sir Jeffrey during the course of this hour. I apologize for this slight delay, but now that we're started, I can say that we'll finish about two o'clock. And Sir Jeffrey will talk for about 20, 25 minutes, and we'll then take questions. And the complete session is on the record. Before introducing Sir Jeffrey, I'd just like to convey to him my own personal condolences and the condolences of the Institute on the very untimely death of Christopher Stalford, a DUP assembly member who died earlier this week. I don't think Sir Jeffrey requires an awful lot of introduction from me. He's very well known, not only in Northern Ireland, he's very well known here in the South. He's always engaged with Civic Society in the South to explain his position on Northern Ireland. And I'm delighted to welcome him here. In this, the third of our sessions with party leaders in Northern Ireland to try and help explain to our members and to the wider public here what the issues are, what are the concerns of people in Northern Ireland about the Northern Ireland protocol and about the future of Northern Ireland. Sir Jeffrey has spent practically all his life in politics. He started with the Ulster Unionists and then has been with the DUP for practically 25 years. He had been a member in the Assembly. He's been a member of Parliament at Westminster and he became leader of the DUP last year. Sir Jeffrey, it's a great pleasure for me to welcome you to the Institute, the floor is yours. Thank you very much Tahi and I very much appreciate your words of condolence and I will certainly convey those to Laura Stalford and to the wider family circle and we really appreciate the warmth of your words and also of your welcome. And it's a pleasure once again to join with the Institute of International and European Affairs. I do so on a day when Europe has been robbed by the events in Ukraine. So in a way I almost feel guilty about focusing in on our local difficulties if you like when there are enormous and huge things happening in Eastern Europe but I will try to stick to my remit which is to talk about the impact of the Northern Ireland protocol and just as importantly how we can all work together to deliver lasting solutions to the current challenges that we face. And from the outset can I thank the members of the IIEA for their joining us today for taking an interest in Northern Ireland and I think it is important that we have this kind of engagement, this kind of dialogue that promotes better understanding because the better the understanding the better the prospect of together finding solutions. When I last had the pleasure of speaking with you in July 2019 I made clear my desire and that of my party to find a resolution that worked for all parts of these islands to achieve a lasting solution that had the collective support of all our people and which could deliver upon the promise of a better future of course remains our core objective. In that speech I observed that when people feel forced down a particular path that is rarely the route to a long-term and lasting solution. Any agreement which fails to win the hearts and minds of all communities in Northern Ireland will ultimately fail the test of time and it therefore gives me no pleasure in saying those are the very circumstances that we now find ourselves in today. It has been a long established norm that arrangements and agreements can only flourish when supported by both Unionists and Nationalists in Northern Ireland. That has been the very foundation of any and all political progress in Northern Ireland and must be the template for moving forward if we are to achieve our collective goal. One of the most disturbing characteristics of this period has been the almost total disregard for this fundamental principle. If we were to find a lasting resolution to the questions facing these islands then we must return to the politics of consensus. It was the late John Hume who championed the idea that instead of majority rule on either side being the way forward it had to be the politics of consensus. I fear that has been abandoned to a degree. Commiliation on one side over the other is not the answer either. Reconciliation will only be achieved not through retribution but through a genuine desire to accommodate people and to achieve a consensus on the way forward. Progress will not be made along the path to perdition. In July last year when I was elected leader of the Democratic Unionist Party I made clear that restoring the constitutional balance that was achieved in the Belfast and St Andrews agreements was the only path to stable and sustainable government in Northern Ireland. Many of you here will all be all too aware of the painstaking work and sacrifices made to achieve our current political arrangements. Arrangements which at their heart recognised Northern Ireland's constitutional position within the United Kingdom and respected our unique circumstances. And of course the principle of consent was at the heart of those arrangements. They are arrangements which also delivered support for the delicate balance of relationships on these islands whether internal to Northern Ireland, North-South on the island or East-West between these islands. Arrangements which ensured progress was made on the basis of all communities moving forward together has been the basis on which we have moved forward. But the continued imposition of the protocol upon Northern Ireland has unfortunately cast its long shadow over our political arrangements at Stormont and indeed the everyday lives of our people. The genuine concerns and objections to the protocol cannot be wished away nor can they be ignored. Only by recognising the fundamental flaws at the heart of the Northern Ireland protocol can lasting replacement arrangements be made which command the necessary support of people across the community. As a leader of Northern Ireland's largest party I must stress that the problems of the protocol are not simply confined to unionists but they affect the everyday lives and livelihoods of everyone in Northern Ireland. It is a nondisputed fact that Northern Ireland purchases from Great Britain are four times more valuable than from the rest of the island. Therefore any barriers to trade within our largest market which is Great Britain inevitably leads to devastating consequences for businesses and indeed real difficulties for consumers. Every day Northern Ireland is subjected to some new problem arising from the protocol that impacts on a business, a consumer or indeed a sector of the population as a whole. It is estimated by economists that the cost of the protocol to our economy on a daily basis is in the region of 2.5 million pounds in additional costs, lost opportunities and of course the infrastructure that is required to support the implementation of the protocol. Every day elected representatives like me spend time trying to advise constituents about how to navigate the new and ever evolving arrangements born out of the protocol at a time when households and businesses can least afford it and with spiralling energy costs which will be impacted even further by the crisis in Ukraine. The fact that the cost of moving goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland has risen by 27% in the past 12 months since the protocol was introduced adds significantly to the cost for households and businesses in Northern Ireland. In the middle of a health pandemic the protocol has also jeopardised our medicine supply. No business, no household, no person anywhere in Northern Ireland has been able to escape the harm of the protocol and the current situation could dramatically worsen if the grace periods are brought to an end. The £500 million trader support scheme that has been put in place and the so-called grace periods which have temporarily shielded Northern Ireland from the worst excesses of the protocol will soon come to an end. There will be no trader support scheme when it is finished. There will be no grace period to protect businesses and then we will feel the full heat of the protocol and its devastating impact on the economy in those circumstances. The EU has stated clearly that the current number of checks being carried out are only 30% of what they should be so you can imagine the impact if they turn up the volume to 100% of checks. The EU said they want to introduce charges on parcels travelling from one part of the UK to another. Just this week an EU spokesperson spoke with the need to police the movement of children's toys into Northern Ireland. I had a situation yesterday with a constituent who has a disability adapted motor vehicle. They needed a component part from a supplier in Great Britain to repair the ramp at the rear of the vehicle so that they are able to be mobile. They were not able to bring that component part from Great Britain because they were not a registered business for customs purposes. That is just one small impact having a major effect on the life of one of my constituents who is disabled and means she cannot operate her disability vehicle at the moment and therefore is confined to her home. Some people may feel that is a small thing but in the life of my constituent it is a big thing. Independent reports have concluded that the protocol does not at the moment deliver the best of both worlds because it creates a major barrier to trade within our biggest market the United Kingdom. As a proud Ulsterman I make no apologies for refusing to confine Northern Ireland's people to what some might describe as the worst of all worlds. As a proud Unionist I make no apologies for refusing to accept a protocol which in my opinion and the opinion of the High Court in Belfast changes our constitutional status as part of the United Kingdom and as such represents an existential threat to our place within the Union. The High Court has ruled that the protocol suspends key elements of the acts of Union and specifically Article 6 which gives Northern Ireland citizens the right to trade freely within their own country. So at the moment citizens and businesses in Northern Ireland have been denied the right to trade freely within their own country as a result of the protocol that is the denial of what I regard as a fundamental right in our society and I don't believe it is acceptable that this right should continue to be denied to Northern Ireland citizens simply to protect the integrity of the EU's single market. I don't believe that any country in the world would tolerate such a situation and I certainly am not prepared to tolerate the idea of an internal customs border in the REC that separates businesses and consumers in Northern Ireland from their main market in Great Britain and the longer the protocol remains the more harm it will do. The protocol will have reoriented our supply chains and our economy away from Great Britain. That's why I've warned the governments in London and Dublin of the inevitable consequences if the REC border is not removed. It's why I've given time and space for talks between the EU and the UK to make progress. It's why I have offered practical unreasonable solutions to both sides in an effort to move this situation forward. But I'm afraid that the decision by the EU to dismiss concerns and not so far to reach agreement with the UK means that the political institutions in Northern Ireland and the economy are being destabilised on a daily basis. The EU told us that the main purpose of the protocol was to protect the political institutions created under the Good Friday Agreement. It hasn't achieved that objective. It has alienated Unionists. It has left Unionists feeling that they are significantly disadvantaged by this protocol, that their rights have been diminished, that their constitutional status with the rest of the UK has been altered without their consent. And in those circumstances and in the absence of a consensus on the way forward, then this has an impact on political stability here. The economic prosperity and the political fortunes of these islands are, of course, intertwined. The interests of all our people North and South are undermined by the outworking of the current arrangements. The North-South Ministerial Council does not meet at the moment. The Executive does not meet at the moment because Unionists have lost confidence in the way in which we are being treated under this protocol. I truly value partnership arrangements working with our neighbours in the Republic of Ireland and I believe we all benefit from strong British Irish relationships. But there can be no hiding the fact that recent years have not been conducive to building better relations on this island. The actions taken and the positions adopted by those who, frankly, should know better to settle old scores or to strengthen their credentials for electoral purposes has undoubtedly led to setbacks. The damage caused to the east-west element of our delicate political settlement in Northern Ireland by the protocol has gravely undermined North-South relations. When I spoke with you last, I said that North man should not be used as a pawn in a diplomatic chess match, which one side must win and the other must lose. I said that all concerned parties must pause, the clock, step back and look at the bigger picture. Mr Chairman, my message remains the same today. We can do better than saddle future generations with what might be described as whack-a-mole politics between London and Brussels. Every time a problem comes along, you give it a whack, but it doesn't fix the overall issue and the difficulties created by the protocol. We previously outlined how much we've appreciated the need for the European Union to protect the integrity of its single market, but the UK is also entitled to protect the integrity of its internal market, including Northern Ireland's place within that internal market. Therefore, we need to find solutions that are capable of respecting both. I believe there are such solutions. I spent most of my public life working for solutions and stability in Northern Ireland, and the ultimate goal was to deliver a political settlement that worked for everyone and to foster relations to give people who live here control over their own affairs. Respecting difference and securing consensus became part of the political language in Northern Ireland, yet the protocol fails to achieve this. The foundation of political progress in Northern Ireland has been moving forward together. That isn't possible if one community feels it is sidelined or ignored. We must tackle the instability eating away at the heart of our politics if we are to build on firmer foundations. Regrettably, the long shadow of the IRC border is holding us back. The challenges ahead seem many, but the price to be secured will be worth all the effort because I believe there is scope for enhanced cooperation if we can resolve the issues and problems and the challenges created by the protocol. Now is the time to repair our politics, to reset relations on these islands, and to restore fairness for all. By moving forward together, we can build that better future that we all want to see. I am very happy to take questions. Thank you.