She has stressed that her party will now consider the full details of what has been agreed.

"I welcome the UK and EU reaching an agreement in relation to the Protocol,” stated Naomi Long.

“For Alliance, any agreement must protect Northern Ireland’s dual market access to both the UK market and the EU Single Market. At the same time, it should reduce the level and change the nature of checks on the movement of goods across the Irish Sea. 

“Crucially, however, it must end the uncertainty which we have experienced since Brexit and provide stability going forward for business, politics and the entire community. We will now be assessing the details of the ‘Windsor Framework’ in this context.

“We will be scrutinising the proposals for the so-called ‘Stormont Brake’ particularly carefully, to ensure that any mechanism proposed does not introduce a new layer of ongoing instability into the Assembly and Executive, or further disadvantage non-aligned MLAs whose votes already count for less than others under current Assembly voting rules. 

“We must also ensure this doesn't create any more uncertainty for local businesses and investors in-terms of Single Market compliance.

“In that context, the institutional reform we have proposed becomes even more critical to ensuring that any restored Assembly and Executive is sustainable, stable and cannot be held to ransom by any single party again on any pretext.”