The Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) has called for any submissions from a former top Stormont civil servant to the British government's Brexit negotiators to be published.
The LCC represents the UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando and has been fiercely critical of the Northern Ireland Protocol which was designed to avoid a border on the island of Ireland and creates a new series of checks on some trade between Britain and Northern Ireland.
It has emerged that Dr Andrew McCormick, a former Stormont official, played a central role as the British government negotiated the Brexit deal. Writing in The Constitution Society Dr McCormick said responsibility for the Northern Ireland Protocol lies “fairly and squarely” with Boris Johnson and his ministers.
He continued: “It is hard to imagine anything (other than Brexit itself) with greater democratic legitimacy under the UK constitution than something that was the very centre of the manifesto on which a government secured a clear majority in a general election.
“There is little credibility in any argument that the UK government either did not anticipate the implications of what it had agreed, or was constrained and unable to choose any other option.”
Dr McCormick was in charge of international relations for the Northern Ireland Executive Office until last year. As Brexit lead in the Executive, he was also a regular attendee at ministerial meetings.
LCC chairman David Campbell said if Dr McCormick was advising the government "on behalf of the Northern Ireland Executive it is vital that his advice is now published and the political approval for such advice is disclosed".
