Ginger group Informal Group A ginger group is a formal or informal group within an organisation seeking to influence its direction and activity. The term comes from the phrase ginger up, meaning to enliven or stimulate. Ginger groups work to alter the organisation's policies, practices, or office-holders, while still supporting its general goals. Ginger groups sometimes form within the political parties of Commonwealth countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Pakistan.
"strictly necessary" measures if applying the protocol "leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade". Apply the wording you've just quoted because that is the legal test. There are no serious economic societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist. Nor any diversion of trade. There are political difficulties for the UK faced with a belligerent sectarian minority, a handful of nutters who claim to speak for the Protestants. That was not a miscalculation by Boris. It was a deliberate move to enable him to 'deliver' Brexit for the mainly English who wanted it. 'Strictly necessary' I read to mean that the steps have to be proportionate and no more. It does not give one side the right to rip up that. part of the agreement. Finally if you want to reminisce fondly about the good old days of good old fashioned fudge can I remind you that we walked away from that club so its rules, customs and ways of doing things no longer apply to us - the fudge is to preserve a lowest common denominator of benefit for members. Yet another serious miscalculation by Boris.
The NI parties that oppose the Protocol and their current share of the NI vote are :- DUP - 21%, UUP (Trimble's old party) 11%, and TUV - 7.6%. That means that NI parties representing almost 40% of the voting electorate oppose the Protocol. They are refusing to go into government while it remains. Your interpretation of Article 16, that this does not represent serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties in such circumstances is frankly a nonsense.
