Pressure on UUP chief to bar McNarry
UUP leader Tom Elliott
TOM Elliott was last night under intense pressure from senior colleagues to expel David McNarry from the UUP after a 35-minute broadcast interview in which he repeatedly attacked his party leader.
Mr McNarry quit the UUP Assembly group last Friday after being disciplined for what he said in a newspaper interview about talks with the DUP – but he remains a member of the Ulster Unionist Party.
Yesterday, Mr McNarry took to the airwaves to launch a savage assault on Mr Elliott.
Mr McNarry told the Nolan Show on BBC Radio Ulster that he would not yet release notes of meetings between the DUP and UUP but suggested that he would at some point in the future.
Asked about his party leader, Mr McNarry told the programme: “I think part of the problem is Tom doesn’t really know what he is doing. I think this whole issue of leadership very regrettably has got beyond him.”
He added: “I think his problem is he’s in a state of denial.”
The senior Orangeman, who backed Mr Elliott for the UUP leadership, said: “I question his ability in that what has happened to me is a prime example of how he is unable to deal with things rationally.”
He also accused his party leader of “dithering” and “not telling his party what he was doing” on the DUP talks.
Mr McNarry also said: “As far as I’m concerned what he’s done to me, the manner in which he has done it, has displayed a part of his personality which in my opinion rules him out for leadership.”
In the wake of Mr McNarry’s disciplining for speaking out to the media last week, UUP MLAs are now reluctant to speak on the record about the issue.
However, at a meeting of the party’s Assembly group on Monday there was unanimous support for Mr Elliott’s decision to discipline Mr McNarry and it is understood that MLAs are strongly behind his decision to move against the party veteran.
Last night a senior UUP figure told the News Letter that in the wake of the interview there was agreement within the party’s upper echelons that Mr McNarry had to be expelled.
The veteran party figure, who asked not to be named, said: “He should be out. I think what he’s done is just intolerable. He has a history of these sort of solo runs attacking colleagues and it just cannot continue.
“I thought that what he said on Nolan was horrendous
“Name me a political party that would tolerate that; can you imagine being in the DUP and attacking Robinson or going off the rocker about Gerry or Martin in Sinn Fein?
“You wouldn’t be seen again. The damage he’s causing, the longer this goes on, is getting unbearable.”
It has also emerged that because Mr McNarry has now resigned from the UUP Assembly group the Ulster Unionists, who have dropped to 15 MLAs, are set to lose two places on Stormont committees.
Meanwhile, another former Ulster Unionist candidate yesterday announced that he was leaving the party.
Bill Manwaring, who stood for the party in the last Stormont and Westminster elections in West Belfast, did not renew his UUP membership recently and yesterday said that he was joining the Conservatives ahead of the party’s re-launch in the Province.
East Londonderry candidate Lesley Macaulay confirmed earlier this week that she had left the UUP to join the Conservatives while South Belfast candidate Paula Bradshaw and Upper Bann UUP hopeful Harry Hamilton both already defected to Alliance some time ago.
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 29 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
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Wind direction: South west
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