As the female chair of the Ulster Unionist Party, I back Doug Beattie as our leader

I fully support my party leader Doug Beattie after the ‘whining like a girl’ row.

I can categorically confirm that he has been nothing but supportive and encouraging to me as a Ulster Unionist Party member, party chair and elected representative.

I acknowledge that he quickly apologised for his careless comments, but appreciate that he was giving an emotional speech at the time, whilst being heckled.

I think it is very fair to say that those who want to use this to deflect from their own failings at Stormont, will not fool those of us who are dealing with the day to day struggles of families and businesses across Northern Ireland in the face of no functioning government and the political pantomime we are having to endure at the moment.

We have to get real here and remember why those MLAs were actually in the chamber on Wednesday, to attempt to get an executive going again. We are living in unprecedented times with our our NHS on its knees, our education sector faces major cuts and a society with people freezing or relying on food banks in such a cost of living crisis.

The UUP fully recognise the damage that the Northern Ireland Protocol has done both constitutionally and economically to our Union, and we were warning this from 2019, but this was initially supported by the DUP, who are now desperately trying to save face in the wake of their disastrous leadership.

We all know that the UK and EU need to agree new arrangements which are consistent with the guarantees and provisions of the Belfast Agreement and which command the support of both communities in Northern Ireland. There is no reason why this can’t be done in parallel to a functioning Stormont executive.

When the race to the bottom continues with our politicians holding our country to ransom, it’s only ever our most vulnerable who suffer.

Councillor Jill Macauley, Ulster Unionist Party Chairwoman