A FORMER leading civil servant insights into the British government's handling of the Northern Ireland Protocol have been described as having "significant credibility".
Andrew McCormick, who for five years was Stormont's most senior official involved in the Brexit process, said responsibility for the Irish Sea border lay "fairly and squarely" with Boris Johnson and his ministers.
He made the remarks in an article for the Constitution Society published on Wednesday.
"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," Mr McCormick wrote.
"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."
Alliance deputy leader Stephen Farry said the former Department for the Economy permanent secretary's comments had "significant credibility" given his "front row seat to post-Brexit discussions".
"It is clear that the protocol is the inevitable consequence of the decisions around the nature of Brexit," the North Down MP said.
"It is only via significant change to that architecture that the protocol would disappear. For now the only option lies through pragmatism and building trust to find mutually agreed and sustainable mitigations."
David Campbell, frontman for the Loyalist Communities Council, a group purporting to represent elements of the UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commando, said Mr McCormick's role in the protocol process required "much deeper scrutiny".
"If he was advising HMG (the British 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," the said.
"What views did he give on the impact of the protocol on the core guarantees of the Belfast Agreement and did he ensure that HMG, and any European negotiators he encountered, were in no doubt that unionist as well as nationalist concerns had to be addressed in line with the agreement's principles?"
SDLP Brexit spokesperson Matthew O'Toole said that unlike Mr Campbell, a board member of the Agrifood and Biosciences Institute, Mr McCormick is a "significant public servant well versed in the challenges of Brexit".
"It should be uncontroversial to point out the UK government, which prioritised a hard Brexit, ignoring endless warnings about the consequences for Northern Ireland, are the ones who must take primary responsibility for those consequences," he said.
"Of course David Campbell is not someone known for taking responsibility, having spent months indulging chilling rhetoric and extremism even as the real world consequences become clear."
