Northern Ireland's power-sharing institutions could be lost forever if the DUP boycott of the assembly does not end, UUP peer Lord Reg Empey has warned

The Stormont institutions collapsed last year as part of a DUP protest against post-Brexit trading arrangements.

Earlier this year, the UK government and EU unveiled the Windsor Framework to mitigate some of the trading difficulties which had been caused by the Northern Ireland Protocol.

While the DUP says the framework has gone some way to address its concerns, it feels some significant problems remain and has made clear its boycott will continue until it secures further assurances.

The DUP supported leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum, while the rival Ulster Unionist Party backed remain.

Speaking of Brexit, Lord Empey, a former UUP leader, said: “You could see what was coming a mile away.

“Everything that has happened was foreseen and was foreseeable.

“There is nothing wrong in principle with leaving the EU, but the way it was done was terrible.”

Lord Empey added: “Did they (the DUP) really believe that any UK government was going to build a 20-foot-high wall from Newry to Londonderry with barbed wire on the top of it?

“Did they ask the government where they were going to put the border?

“It was perfectly obvious if you have three or four sea lanes open versus a 300-mile-long border – common sense dictates they were going to go for the easy option, apart from the politics of it.”

Lord Empey said the collapse of Stormont had closed down “the most obvious symbol of unionism in Northern Ireland”.

He added: "The boycott process has clearly failed.

“If we keep on boycotting this place, sooner or later it will stop and not come back and if anybody thinks that London is going to put things back to 1980s style direct rule, they are deluding themselves.

“It will be a mixture, there will be a bigger role for Republic.”