UUP leader Doug Beattie says Tim Collins comments don't 'reflect party policies' as Alex Easton accuses candidate of 'belittling' residents' concerns

In an interview carried in Saturday’s News Letter the former army colonel – who was announced as the UUP Westminster candidate earlier this year – commented on how people would vote in a border poll.

He said: “In the privacy of the polling booth, when people had the choice to pay 60 euros for every visit to the doctor, and 60 euros for every every prescription – if Disability Living Allowance went away and people had to get up in the morning and go to work – I think that the Union would be secure between about 85 and 90 per cent”.

The comments faced criticism on social media, given that Disability Living Allowance was replaced by Personal Independence Payment (PIP) – introduced in 2016. Medical card holders in the Republic pay a prescription charge of €1.50 for each item – up to a maximum of €15 per month, for each person or family. Those without a medical card have charges capped at €80 per month if they are signed up to the Drugs Payment Scheme.

Asked by Cool FM’s political reporter James Gould if Mr Collins was wrong in what he was saying, Doug Beattie said: “Factually he was incorrect, in truth. And we know that. I guess in many ways what he was trying to say – if you look at some aspects of it – that when people get into the polling booth if there was ever a border poll, it’s [about] what’s important to them”.

Mr Beattie said: “Let’s be honest, it is not the language we should be using. It did not adhere to party policies, and that falls down to me, I have to take responsibility for that because that interview was actually given two months ago.

“So we did this interview two months [ago], he’d been in the party four or five weeks and we had not made sure that he had all of the information. Look we can point fingers and we can blame – and we can expect people to be the finished article when they start an election campaign – when they first get into politics.

“But the reality is, people need to learn. It’s not our policies. If you want to see our policies you go and look at our manifestoes and you will see what our policies are.

“So it wasn’t what I would have wished for”, he added.

In the News Letter interview, Tim Collins also said the constituency wasn’t being well served – and what political rivals “have no way of understanding – because they’ve never lived outside NI – is that we have various levels of governance. We have councils which deal with potholes and parking”, arguing that the job of MPs is to make sure NI gets its fair share of the benefit from being in the UK.

Former DUP MLA Alex Easton, who may run as an independent candidate in an upcoming Westminster election, has hit back at the comments.

He told the News Letter: “I find some of the comments by Mr Collins are baffling and he seems to be unaware of what is important to residents across North Down and appears rather out of touch.

“Firstly Mr Collins does not seem to be aware that pot holes are dealt with by the department for infrastructure and not council.

“I am also baffled about the comments about potholes, parking and dog excrement, yes these are all small issues in the scheme of things but they are also important to lots of people and should not be belittled in anyway.

“If you can’t be bothered to deal or seem to want to address the small issues how can you be trusted to deal with the large issues, every issue is important regardless of how small they seem and are important to people”.

Tim Collins’s interview with the News Letter sparked a flurry of online reaction at the weekend. Former UUP communications chief Alex Kane described it as very interesting “albeit not interesting in the way that it should be for a candidate. I’m pretty sure some of his responses will have done his electoral prospects no favours”.

Jamie Bryson described the interview as “a car crash, riddled with arrogant nonsense – but one thing he was absolutely without question accurate on is that Alliance are pursuing a nationalist agenda”. Alliance said the interview “is full of inaccuracies and offensive statements and…largely speaks for itself.”