Liz Truss resigns: Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Peter Kyle says Conservatives have 'plunged Northern Ireland into yet more uncertainty'

Labour MP Mr Kyle said: “Northern Ireland has suffered enough from Tory neglect. At this critical time, with Assembly elections looming and crucial negotiations ongoing, the Tories plunge Northern Ireland into yet more uncertainty.”

He said that his party “stands ready to be the honest broker Northern Ireland needs”.

Meanwhile Ireland’s finance minister Paschal Donohoe said he hopes the engagement between the EU and the UK Government on the Northern Ireland Protocol can continue in the wake of Liz Truss’s resignation.

“I very much hope that the engagement that we are having with the current British Government on the future of the Northern Ireland Protocol can continue,” he told reporters in Dublin.

“The Irish government believes that a very important contribution to deeper economic and political stability in the time ahead would be a successful completion of the process that is under way with regards to the Northern Ireland Protocol.

“And if an agreement can be reached, it would be a really strong foundation to a far stronger and more positive-looking relationship between the European Union, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

“That will have a very positive impact against the many risks that all of us are dealing with at the moment and we hope and believe that the new tone in relation to this work will continue in the time ahead.

“Because resolution of this longstanding challenge will be a really positive signal amidst the many different difficulties that we’re all dealing with.”