Aileen Quinton: I was a Brexit Party candidate but am dismayed that it has failed to take an absolute line on condemning IRA terror

I had watched videos of the candidates being unveiled. The diversity on show struck me as more than tokenism. I was amused by the idea that this would get up the noses of those who wanted to paint Brexiteers as racists and of actual racists, who would consider it betrayal.

I ended up as number eight on the London list, which meant I could not have got in unless 100% of London voted for the Brexit Party. But I was excited to be part of it and to help those who did have a chance.

There was a fly in the ointment though. I would not have wanted to associate with terrorist supporters regardless of personal circumstances but having had my mother murdered by the IRA adds considerable emotion to that stance.

The issue about Brexit Party candidate Claire Fox and the support for the IRA of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), of which she was a past member, became public because of the Warrington connection, where she was standing.

I was hoping that the situation would be clarified with an unequivocal condemnation of all terror.

It was not to be.

Instead I heard Nigel Farage dismiss the issue as an irrelevancy. It was a punch in the gut. He came out with some bilge that I would have expected from Sinn Fein/IRA, about the Belfast Agreement and more or less endorsed not condemning pre agreement terror.

He was quite right to call out the hypocrisy of many commentators as being motivated more by opposition to Brexit than to terrorism.

I wonder about the stance of those calling loudest, on the acceptability of Martin McGuinness, the unrepentant mass murderer.

However, anyone would have had a job pinning that charge on me.

It was a horrible position to be in and one I could not have anticipated.

Without going into things that happened inside the Party I did challenge the narrative.

Many other victims, that I know across the UK (including families of murdered soldiers) are Brexiteers and a few had made contact to express delight at discovering I was standing.

When the IRA issue came up, the reaction to me from the ‘victims sector’ was a mix of “why is Nigel letting this happen?” to “I never expected them to be any better than the rest. Stick to your values girl and don’t let them push you out”.

Sally Bate who was on the same list as Claire Fox stood down, specifically because of this.

I wanted Claire Fox and the Brexit Party to do the right thing and I wanted to give them time for that to happen.

There were comments on Twitter about my silence. The Belfast Telegraph was on my case (not complaining. They were just doing their job) and stress reached its peak one Saturday when I was meant to be canvassing but had a dizzy turn at the top of the stairs and almost fell down them.

I eventually put out my statement.

I had been made aware of other RCP candidates, including one on the London list. I was assured that they never supported the violence.

I was satisfied with what I had heard and considered the London list matter closed. How the party had treated the general issue was far from closed.

If this had been a general election and I had been a candidate, ie to a proper Parliament, I would have stood down. Even in this MEP election, I would have done, if I had been on the Claire Fox list.

(I noticed much later that Sally Bate said she had been turned down as a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate as being “too controversial”. Refusing to condemn terrorism seemingly less so than objecting to that refusal.)

I did not go to the big Brexit Party rally before the vote. I was not prepared to share a platform with someone who was refusing to condemn pre Belfast Agreement IRA terror or a leader who was dismissing this as a triviality. So a big announcement that “all our candidates” were there was not true.

I think that supporting terrorism was such a trivial issue for them that they just didn’t notice my absence.

Apart from the Hell of this IRA issue, the rally and the open top bus ride should have been a wonderful memory.

I loved working with the London Brexit Party team. It was great craic. Accusations of racism seemed even more ridiculous with this group. I was the only non Jewish white candidate in London – and I was last on the list!

I would have loved to have carried on in the Brexit Party and been part of its celebrations. But I had to break with it.

The day after the results, I left the WhatsApp groups and unsubscribed from the supporter emails.

I got caught up with an unedifying email exchange between my victims group South East Fermanagh Foundation and the Brexit Party about the controversy. The response to SEFF was patronising and dismissive, as Kenny Donaldson wrote in this newspaper last week (see link below).

When I applied to be a candidate I had to declare that I had never been a member of organisations like the BNP (which I understand) but apparently supporting the IRA and refusing to retract that is hunky dory. (Soon after the results someone was expelled from the Party because it was discovered that he had been a BNP member).

Despite one of the arguments for not condemning the IRA being that Claire Fox no longer comments on the Troubles, this Twitter exchange https://twitter.com/mrjoelclark/status/1159504872854695936 (the web version of this article will include a link to that tweet) tells a different story.

There are many great individuals in the Brexit Party. I will be rooting for many of their candidates tomorrow.

Corbyn and McDonnell’s stance on terror does not give others a free pass. I expect better.

• Kenny Donaldson on the Claire Fox row