Letter: The ​NI Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris rushed to accept DUP leader's claims on threats

Ben Lowry’s Saturday column (‘Fellow unionists should hardly have been Sir Jeffrey’s target’, February 24) is a very measured and objective analysis of the DUP leader’s criticism of unionists who do not support to the DUP’s capitulation to the NI Protocol/Windsor Framework.

I do hope that Mr Lowry, and the News Letter team, continue to speak truth to power and about the powerful, for there is a crying need for such challenges in Northern Ireland. The example cited in Ben’s article is an excellent case in point. With the police investigation concluding that “no offences were detected” (‘Loyalist tells Donaldson to clarify threat claim’, February 24) the words and actions of the DUP Leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and the Secretary of State, Chris Heaton-Harris warrant closer scrutiny.

In his set-piece House of Commons speech on January 24 the DUP Leader stated, on several occasions, that unnamed persons from the unionist community “…are threatening me, and people like me...” He used the alleged “threats” to criticise those within the unionist community who oppose the Irish Sea border and the constitutional damage inflicted on Northern Ireland’s position within the UK by the NI Protocol/Windsor Framework.

Noting that Sir Jeffrey had yet to even make a formal police complaint at that time, Chris Heaton-Harris pre-empted due process and declared that, “The fact that the right hon. Gentleman has been threatened for doing the job he should be doing is a disgrace—it is extraordinary…The people making these threats are cowards and idiots, and I know that they will not deter him.”

What is extraordinary about this affair is the SoS declaring Sir Jeffrey’s allegations as being “fact” ahead of any police investigation.

It is also extraordinary, and somewhat intriguing, that the SoS told Sir Jeffrey: “I promise him that I shall work with him and use whatever power I have to make sure that he does not feel insecure in going about his business properly...”.

This surely merits further investigation and clarification lest it be misinterpreted as an intention to (mis)use state apparatus to shut down legitimate and lawful political activities in order to protect the politically preferred or compliant.

In order to assuage such concerns, perhaps the SoS could detail how his promise to Sir Jeffrey will work in practice and what safeguards will be put in place to prevent him repeating his mistake of taking Sir Jeffrey’s allegations at face value?

Thomas Smyth, Belfast BT4