Former Northern Ireland First Minister Lord Trimble has lashed out at the Irish Government, accusing them of undermining the Good Friday Agreement with their conduct in the Brexit negotiations. Trimble, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his instrumental role in securing the Good Friday Agreement, accused Leo Varadkar’s Government of “riding roughshod over its terms and violating its spirit”.

Writing in the foreword of a new Policy Exchange paper, Trimble says that Northern Ireland is at risk of becoming an “effective EU protectorate” without the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly, which “would be an appalling breach of the principle of consent, which runs through the Agreement”.

However the two sides try to dress it up, there is no disguising the fact that the backstop as the EU is currently proposing would fundamentally alter the status of Northern Ireland within the UK. The EU’s rhetoric about respecting the GFA is hollow as long as they keep trying to push it through…