It is baffling that the Ulster Unionist Party leader has defended Keir Starmer from criticism over his stance on the IRA

The latest comments by current leader Steve Aiken have done nothing to assuage the sense of declinism and ineptitude that has plagued unionism in this time.

Of all the issues on which to take a bold stance on and gain national media exposure, Mr Aiken has chosen this week to double down on his spurious request for Boris Johnson to formally withdraw his comments regarding Sir Keir Starmer’s support “for an IRA condoning politician who wanted to get out of Nato”.

Boris was in this instance entirely correct.

Sir Keir, unlike many other prominent Labour MPs, was in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet and decided to actively campaign for Corbyn to become prime minister at the last general election — yes Corbyn, an appalling man whose IRA sympathies are so well known that they should be anathema to any unionist, especially the leader of the party of Carson, Molyneux and Trimble.

As leader, Corbyn was given multiple opportunities to disavow his support for the IRA, and always declined them.

I challenged Mr Aiken on a tweet he issued on Wednesday which criticised the prime minister for his remarks about Sir Keir but instead of retreating from his criticism, Mr Aiken reiterated it in another tweet.

It is baffling to me why Mr Aiken is choosing this hill to die on; unionist interests have certainly not been well served by the DUP recently, but trying to turn the responsible party of Northern Ireland, the party that took so much flak to deliver the Good Friday Agreement, into a watered down Alliance Party is not the way to regain ground.

I urge Mr Aiken to reflect on this bizarre intervention, and return to trying to revive the UUP’s fortunes as a passionate advocate for the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that Corbyn’s Labour Party, of which Sir Keir was one of the most senior members, would have been delighted to break up in Sinn Fein’s interests.

• Joel Davidson (@joel__davidson) was a Conservative Party councillor in NW London from 2014-18 and is an Approved Conservative Parliamentary Candidate