Arising from the plan to bring Alliance into the Executive as Justice Minister, TUV has highlighted the fact that Northern Ireland will now have an Assembly without a single opposition party.

In a statement David Vance said:-

"Not that Alliance was ever taken seriously as providing an Opposition in Stormont - because in their DNA they are fanatically pro terrorist-inclusive government - but their admission to the Executive will remove the last fickle semblance of normal political and democratic credibility from this Stormont.

"Even Mugabe allows some form of ‘Opposition’, but the Stormont shambles will not brook even the pretence of ticking such a basic democratic box. This consequence of the Sinn Fein/DUP Hillsborough deal, in extinguishing the presence of a token Opposition, will not concern the practitioners of mandatory coalition, but it does highlight how that tyrannical system tramples on the fundamental building blocks of democracy – the right to vote a party out of government and the right to have an Opposition.

“Unless and until these basics of democracy are re-established in Northern Ireland it can never prosper or count itself among those allowed to exercise real democracy. 

“Oppositions provide a vital function in democracies of challenging and balancing the actions and inactions of government, producing for all a better standard of government. Where there is no opposition, decadence and decay blight the political process. We've seen enough of that already in Stormont, now with not even a token opposition, things can only get worse."