Windsor Framework: New Brexit deal restores balance to NI, says Sunak

Rishi Sunak has said the Brexit deal agreed with the EU restores "balance" to Northern Ireland's politics.

The prime minister announced the new agreement, which replaces the Northern Ireland Protocol and sets new trade rules, on Monday.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Sunak said the protocol had "unsettled" the balance "at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement".

People "need and deserve" government to be up and running, he said.

Political parties in Northern Ireland will need "the time and the space to consider the detail" of the Windsor Framework, Mr Sunak said.

But, he added he was "confident" that Stormont parties will "recognise that this a good deal and that will enable them to get back into a power-sharing executive".

"The Windsor Framework restores that balance," he added.

The Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended since February 2022 after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) walked out of Stormont's power sharing agreement.

The DUP objected to the Northern Ireland Protocol creating an effective trade border across the Irish Sea from Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

DUP's leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the Windsor Framework goes "some way" to addressing his party's concerns, but some issues remain and the party will take time to engage with the government.

He said: "We only received it yesterday afternoon so we'll study it and take a conclusion on it as a whole."

On Monday, Sinn Féin, which is the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, welcomed the deal, although it said it still needed to examine the details.

The party's vice-president, Michelle O'Neill, called for the DUP to return to devolved government, adding: "We always said that with pragmatism, solutions could be found."