Member's statement: DUP: Humble Address

Member's statement by Mr Jim Allister KC on 26 February 2024.

MLA: Mr Jim Allister KC
Party at the time: Traditional Unionist Voice
Date: 26 February 2024
Type: Member's statement
Business: Members' Statements
Heading: DUP: Humble Address
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4230550

Text

As part of the dud deal that brought the DUP back into the Executive, today, in the House of Commons, one of the DUP's fig leaves — what is grandly called a "humble address" — will be promoted. It is build around a flagrant deceit, a deceit that, in the words of that humble address, includes:
"acknowledging the foundational importance of the Acts of Union 1800, including the economic provisions under Article 6 of those Acts".
I say "deceit" because the deal that it celebrates confirms the suspension of the very article 6 that it references.
Our Supreme Court, in clear terms, because of the supremacy afforded in law to the protocol, because it establishes a continuing Irish sea border and because of the foreign EU law that it submits Northern Ireland to, has held that article 6 of the Acts of Union is in suspension. Nothing in the dud Donaldson deal reverses one word of that: article 6 remains in suspension. Yet, because of that, we continue to have a country partitioned by a customs and regulatory border, subject to foreign law and subject to a foreign court. Thereby, the Acts of Union, despite the deception of the humble address —
— continue to be diminished and violated. Those whose mission it is to dismantle the Union will rightly say —
— "Well done, Jeffrey".

226 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.44 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
No identity-based framing was identified (0.67).
Subject area: Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty.
The overall probability was low and the text did not adopt any identity-based framing.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.42	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.09	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.07	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.25	No
Controversy escalation	0.31	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.23	No
Overall judgement	0.44	Between thresholds

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	0.67
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.01
Adopts it	0.32

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty	0.97
No identity-related subject	0.03
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.00
Parades, bonfires and commemorations	0.00
Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:38 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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