MLA dimisses views from Ireland’s Future unionist on 'sexist and racist' DUP

Joanne Bunting was responding to remarks by Andrew Clarke, a speaker who has been promoted by Ireland's Future as an example of someone from a unionist background who now rejects the Union.

He was due to speak at last night's gathering at the Ulster Hall, but pulled out after the News Letter began asking questions about his record of anti-unionist invective online.

Whilst a promotional video for Ireland's Future shows Mr Clarke using measured language to set out his support for Irish unity, his publicly-viewable Twitter feed was a different story.

In the span of several weeks he attacked Orange members as "sickening", "disgusting," and "Ulster's shame", and said the royal family should be thrown in the sea.

As for the DUP, he said: "They work tirelessly to perpetuate hatred against women, against the LGBTQ+ community, against anyone who isn't a white PUL.”

Ms Bunting, DUP MLA for East Belfast, said there is "zero evidence of that", adding: "We didn't get to where we are by just having male voters!"

At the conference last night, a number of speakers from Protestant backgrounds said that they gave more serious consideration to Irish unity after Brexit.

Former Northern Ireland Office press officer Ben Collins said that when he was growing up, he was determined that he would not be “bombed into a united Ireland”.

“Whenever we had peace, that allowed me to look at things differently, and I was able to embrace my Irishness," he added,

Denzil McDaniel, of the Impartial Reporter, said that Protestants are open to change.

“Political unionism needs to take account of the fact that there are a lot of Protestants who now consider themselves ready for change,” he said.

Glenn Bradley, a former British Army soldier and ex-UUP officer, said “intensive debate” on constitutional change in Northern Ireland is happening.

“The only people I can see who are denying that those conversations are taking place, and the potential of what that can then deliver, is political unionism,” he said.

Mr Clarke had also spoken out in his tweets against commemorating UUP politician Robert Bradford, who was shot dead in 1981 in Finaghy, south Belfast, the IRA.

He said UUP man Rev Bradford was a "unionist supremacist", a former member of Ulster Vanguard who "had the enthusiastic backing of the national front", and questioned why the UUP was "honouring" him.

At a 2021 commemoration of his killing (and that of fellow civilian Kenneth Campbell in the same attack), widow Norah Bradford said that her focus was not on achieving criminal convictions for the crime.

She said: “At this point it’s not a priority for me. I leave that to God.

“Nothing gets past God, he knows exactly who was involved and ultimately they will have to face him.

“I can let that all go. I don’t have to carry it. And that is a message of hope.”

• Note: This article originally said Mr Clarke had referred to the commemoration of IRA victim Edgar Graham. This was in error – in fact he had been referring to fellow UUP man Rev Bradford, shot dead two years earlier.