Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“For all the spin surrounding the DUP deal with the government certain facts are already clear.
“Not one word of the Protocol has been altered. Northern Ireland remains wholly within and under the EU Customs Code. In trading terms, Great Britain remains a foreign country.
“Not one syllable of EU law has been disapplied. Hundreds of EU laws will continue to shape our goods economy, identical laws to those which govern the goods economy in the Republic.
“The partitioning Irish Sea border remains.
“Manifestly, the DUP’s own Seven Tests have not been met. The party has accepted the Protocol and, in returning to Stormont as Protocol implementors, will shortly take ownership of it. It is a sad day when the lead Unionist party returns to Stormont on the basis of a deal which means that it accepts that never again will Northern Ireland be a full part of the UK.
“For all the plaudits that he will receive from the media and the rigorous implementors Sir Jeffrey should hang his head in shame. He has accepted a deal which flies in the face of the solemn declaration he signed with other Unionist leaders that it was his “unalterable position that the Protocol must be rejected and replaced by arrangements which fully respect Northern Ireland’s position as a constituent and integral part of the United Kingdom”.
“Not one election but two were fought on the basis of the DUP’s Seven Tests. They have no mandate for the deal they are about to do, a fact which many will assist them in glossing over but a fact nonetheless.”